Direct Mail/E-mail Secret #1: A Highly Targeted List to People Who Desire Your Product, Service or Information
Friday, July 18, 2008A short while back I wrote an e-mail campaign for one of my clients in the personal development industry. The campaign was for a 5-day promotional campaign and involved a series of e-mails leading up to the promotion, several e-mails to send out during the promotion and, of course, a special sales page just for that promotion.
The first day of the promotion the web-based sales page converted 19% of all visitors to paying customers. That’s an incredible conversion rate for any campaign.
Although I’d like to say that my brilliant copywriting deserved all the credit, no copy—no matter how good—can generate a 19% conversion rate when sent to just anyone. The copy was good; so was the promotion plan, the offer and the product. But what really sent that conversion rate soaring was the list of people my client sent the e-mails to.
My client had a list of people to whom he was sending his weekly e-zine to—people who had previously expressed interest in the very product he was promoting. He didn’t buy a list from a list broker or hire a distribution company to distribute his campaign e-mails. He carefully cultivated his list over several years and now has a list of e-mail addresses of people interested specifically in what he has to offer.
The first secret to a highly successful direct mail or e-mail campaign is to send your promotion only to people who have demonstrated an interest in your product/services or similar products and services. Of course, the best list is one that you cultivate yourself, as my client did. But purchased lists work almost as well as long as they are highly targeted.
When purchasing a list, whether for traditional mailing or for e-mailing, make sure the list you purchase fits your target demographic, including age range, income level, gender, and buying habits. Most of all, make sure the list contains only people who have previously purchased products and services similar to or related to the product or service you are promoting. It’s no use trying to sell Omaha Steaks to vegetarians. Your list broker should have that data on file. If he/she doesn’t, find another broker.
So there’s Secret #1 on Generating Huge Response and Outstanding Profits from your next direct mail or e-mail campaign. Next time we’ll discuss Secret #2: Research that Identifies the Desires and Fears and Uncovers a Fresh Marketing Approach for Your Campaign.
If you’d like to learn more about how to generate your own list of highly-targeted prospects, give me a call at 419-371-2302 for a free 15-minute consultation. I can show you dozens of tools to help you generate your own customized list of targeted prospects.
John E. Fike
http://www.fikopy.com/
P.S. Just for the record the client named above is Effexis Software, which produces the best time management and project tracking software available for its price range. Find out more here: http://www.plimus.com/jsp/redirect.jsp?contractId=1647673&referrer=johnefike
posted by John E Fike @ 7:31 AM,
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