|
E mail_VS_The_Web
| E-mail VS The Web
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.
About the author:
David Bell is Manager, Online Marketing, at
http://www.wspromotion.com/ , a leading Search Engine
Optimization services firm and Advertising Agency.
|
|
| |
| |
