An introduction to the 3 different types of search marketing
What's not to love about search engine marketing? As a direct response marketer, I spend a lot of time worrying about my target audience - trying to find the right list or the right media for my outreach campaigns. It's an uphill battle because no matter how well I...
How many more customers will DirecTV and Rob Lowe offend?
You must have seen them by now, those DirecTV commercials featuring Rob Lowe – the good Rob Lowe and the other Rob Lowe. The concept is pretty simple. The good Rob Lowe is using DirecTV. The other Rob Lowe is using cable TV. There are about half-dozen different...
5 reasons why clients don’t insist on direct response advertising
Direct response is a powerful marketing discipline that brings measurable results and accountability to your advertising and marketing. What's not to like about that? So why don't more marketers use it in their advertising? More to the point, why don't more clients...
How to measure Lead Quality
It used to be that when you talked about sales leads, the focus was always on lead quantity – getting more leads. High response rates always seem to rule the day. But at some point, marketers began to realize lead quantity isn’t enough. You also need to consider the...
How to build a Sales Lead Funnel
As marketers, most of us spend a lot of time worrying about of the “front end” of our marketing efforts. Advertising campaigns … direct mail campaigns … email campaigns … search campaigns … PR campaigns … content marketing campaigns … trade show campaigns … etc., etc....
The nuances of the Free Trial Offer
The free trial offer is one of the most common types of direct response offers. You see it everywhere – online, in print, on TV and radio. The free trial offer has been around forever. And for certain products or services, the free trial will always have great...
The sounds of great advertising
Would you know great advertising if you saw it? How would you recognize it? What criteria do you use to assess the effectiveness of a TV commercial, a print ad or a direct mail piece? What in your mind should great advertising accomplish? ------- We all have our...
When creating advertising, don’t make your audience connect too many dots
Chevy’s TV commercial for the Cruze leaves me confused, until now … I got it. I finally got it. I’ve watched this TV commercial dozens of times over the past few weeks, and I couldn’t figure it out – until today. I finally connected the dots. If you are creating...
Direct mail vs. print advertising
Long before the Internet, direct mail vs. print advertising was a common debate among both B2B and B2C marketers. For some, it still is. Even with so many online opportunities around them, many retail stores, restaurants and other local businesses still rely on their...
Direct Mail Ideas: The Ace Hardware “paper bag” offer
Several years ago, Ace Hardware ran a one-day sale that allowed customers to fill up a paper bag and take 20% off on all items in the bag. We’ve seen these direct mail ideas before. Ace Hardware sent out large paper grocery bags and invited customers to come and fill...