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Internet Marketing Techniques -
Articles |
Tips
For Taking Your Internet Advertising Offline With A Postcard
Campaign
Copyright
© by John
Baril
Having
an Internet-based
business does not mean that you are limited to promoting it only on the
Internet. There are many ways to advertise your website off-line as
well.
Internet marketers often overlook the possibility of advertising offline, which is a pity
because it means
they are leaving a lot of cash on the table. Even so, the amount of
television
commercials advertising internet sites is rising.
Perhaps
a TV commercial
would be too expensive, but don't worry - there are a lot of other,
more
economical ways to promote your website off-line. One relatively
economical
method of doing that is to advertise your website with a postcard
mailing
campaign.
The
biggest advantage of
advertising offline using a post card mail shot is the low cost of
producing
and mailing the cards. Nowadays, you can make use of a service such as http://www.click2mail.com
to design and run your campaign wholly from your computer. Are you
aware that it's possible to print and mail 1,000 cards first
class for
less than 40 cents per card?
When
you send out your
postcards, be sure to include your website address and
give your prospects a good reason why they
should go to your site, such as some useful web tools or an
ebook. If
possible, offer something that is unavailable elsewhere, like a report
that you
put together yourself.
Maybe
your affiliate
program features some ready-made postcards which can be purchased and
posted to
potential customers. Even so, it will be much more effective if you
make cards
to your own specifications and make your own advertising copy as this
is more
likely to bring forth greater results for you over time.
The
reason why this is so
lies in your ability to test and tweak your results.
In
a campaign where you use
ready made cards, you have no way to control their design or the
promotional
copy that is printed on them. You are stuck with whatever your
affiliate
company churns out. That is a pity, because the advantage of running a
mail
shot, when it's done the right way, is that it gives you control over
every
single part of your advertising offline campaign, including design and
copy.
Having the option to make different versions of your postcard allows
you to do
a series of split tests.
Let's
suppose you want to
test a couple of different headlines to see which one will generate
more leads.
Print out 500 postcards (batch "A") with one headline and 500 (batch
"B") with the other and post them to 1000 names on your mailing list.
Whichever
batch yields a
higher response is the "winner". Once you have established which
headline is more effective, drop the "losing" headline and work at
another headline that you can run against the "winner" in future
split tests.
What
is a good way to keep
tabs on the results? All you need to do is to insert a code number on
batch
"A" cards and a different code number on the ones in batch
"B". Request that people responding to your offer give the code
number along with their name and e-mail in order to download the
freebie when
they visit your website. That will provide feedback as to how
many active
responses each headline has rendered.
After
you have built up
some experience with advertising offline using postcard mail
shots and
split testing, you will be able to consistently improve the results you
get
from them.
I
wish you the best of success,
John Baril
Copyright © John Baril
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