|
||
Infomercials changed the way advertisers sell things on television. Previously, product manufacturers merely presented their wares on TV in the most attractive manner they could come up with. They planted ideas, sought to change habits or to create them where none existed. They expanded market share subtly with one common unifying factor – you watched the commercial and if you liked what you saw you went to the store or the showroom and bought it. From now on television would be different. Infomercials and direct response marketing was born. Now if you liked what you saw, thought it was just the right product, idea or concept for you, you picked up the phone, called the number on your screen and ordered what you wanted direct from the manufacturer.
It's hard to imagine in today's internet world with overnight deliveries and instantly downloads, but for the very first time you could order something off your TV set without even getting up from your favorite chair. It was unbelievable, magical, and very successful. Almost overnight phone banks sprang up all over the country as the call volume, once numbering in the thousands, surged into the millions. Like Internet domain names today, 800 numbers became a vanity item – the most popular ones disappearing as fast as they became available. Previously only used in magazine advertisements or mail order brochures, the phone business became a very big business with the success of infomercials.
To begin with, infomercials and direct response TV selling give a manufacturer an immediate tool to measure whether or not his product, his pricing and even his approach is working. Previously, manufacturers had to create their product, get it into stores where it would be available for purchase on a nationwide basis and then and only then, launch a costly nationwide advertising campaign on popular TV shows. After that, they would wait a minimum of 90 days, sending out squads of sales personnel or making hundreds of phone calls to find out if their product was selling. If it wasn't it was back to the drawing board to try to figure out what went wrong and then perhaps try it again maybe next year.
With infomercials and direct response, there was now a way to measure the success or failure of any project in a matter of hours and at a fraction of the cost. If a manufacturer had his own phone bank, he could conceivably sit there after his infomercials were airing around the country and literally count the orders coming in. And almost immediately, he would have an idea if his project was working. This leveled the playing field for new product launches and led to the creation of hundreds of new products each and every year launched and tested as infomercials before ever hitting a retail outlet.
The most important of all direct response tips I could give you is this… your list is the most important part of your entire direct mail campaign. Who you mail to is much more important than what you mail them. So if your campaign has proven successful, mail to other lists that are similar to your target market.
Here is another one of the more important direct response tips that you should be aware of… it's to change up your offer from time to time. If you change it up, it will be constantly fresh and the same people won't be getting the same offer time and time again, thus diluting your response rate.
Improve upon your creative. Perhaps your rate of response is suffering due to the fact that your package is not so attractive. Why not try something completely different? Next time, mail out a post card instead of a letter. There are so many ways you can change things up and keep your offer fresh.
You may also want to try and mail out a different time from what you were previously doing. Are you sending out the offers at the same time of the week, month, year, etc.? If so, change up the frequency, mail more, mail less, just change it up.
Here is a must, of all the direct response tips, this one can have a great impact, because it's the ability to offer your clients other payment options. Decades ago all we could accept were checks and MO's. However, today just about any business can get a merchant account and accept credit cards. Give your customers more options and they will use them.
Another one of my favorite direct response tips is to offer a premium. Such as a free Apple iPod as opposed to a cash discount.
Give something away for free, you'd be surprised… FREE is still a very strong word – for as overused as it can be sometimes.
Offer a money back guarantee. This will put your customer at ease and actually increase your response. Sure, you may get a refund here or there, but imagine those orders that you would have not gotten because you did not show confidence in your product to offer a guarantee?
Be credible. Know what you're offering from top to bottom, convey that on paper and you will appear as an authority. Your customers want what you have… why should they get it from you?
Make the order process as easy as possible. Kind of like the payment options above, let them mail their order, call it in, fax it in, order online, etc.
As for the order through the sales process. Put in your call to action. You'd be surprised how many offers don't have a call to action. That's direct marketing 101.
Add more content to your package if results are slowing down… Change it up and see what happens, track it, test it and improve upon it.
I just gave you a few direct response tips. This is not all and everything having to do with direct response, just a tiny fraction of it. I hope to have given you an eye opener with these direct response tips, use them and increase your business today.