July « 2012 « Direct Response Marketing

Jul 31 2012

Searching For That Sweet Spot

Earlier today a client of mine asked me how I can get certain offers to back out at south of $10 when the going CPA on the networks is +$45. The answer is simple:

Step 1: I make sure the offer I’m pushing traffic to is optimized to the point where we I can convert traffic at a higher level than my competitors.

Step 2: I search for the Sweet Spots!!!

What’s a sweet spot? In marketing we refer to sweet spots as those advertising channels that bring in THE MOST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK. Sweet spots are where the gold lies, and once you’ve found your sweet spot you should hone in on it and get as much gold as possible.

Sweet spots are quite addictive. In fact, as we’ve seen with affiliates that pushed fake presale pages, it sometimes takes multiple layers of litigation before a marketer will give up their sweet spot.

Why’s that? Simple, sweet spots are turnkey revenue sources that pull in revenue time and time again, whether the offer is stable or not…. That’s why affiliate pushers of health/beauty products can take take just about any decent offer and make it work on the “sweet spots.” Product verticals that appeal to the masses are the best.

So How Do You Find The Sweet Spots?

Finding your initial sweet spots takes a lot of work. Unless you have a friend in your industry who is willing to give away his sweet spots (unless he’s your best friend, and even then, it’s a long shot), then you’re going to have to figure it out on your own.

You’ll need to understand your customer and their buying patterns, times they shop, where they shop, etc. This takes research, psychology, and… straight up trial and error.

When you start to buy traffic keep your spend to the the publisher’s minimums UNLESS you truly believe you’ve found THE SPOT. You’ve gotta have a long-term mindset.

Additionally as you discover placements that don’t work out, DO NOT SAY TO YOURSELF: “Damn, I just lost money.” That mindset will fuck you up. Instead say: “Fantastic, I’ve discovered that this channel is not where I want to make my investment in traffic. I’m one more step closer to finding the next sweet spot.”

Once you find your first sweet spot scale your traffic up accordingly. Usually to gain more impressions you have to up your spend, which decreases your profit per sale. Nevertheless, if you are still profitable and the ROI makes sense, lower profit with higher sales makes perfect sense…economies of scale.

DO NOT get lazy by sticking to the first sweet spot you find. The first sweet spot provides the perfect opportunity to TEST new creatives, landing pages, etc. to help you improve your profitability. Even better, the traffic from your first sweet spot will help you learn a lot more about where your future customers shop, what triggers their response, etc. This is data you can use to narrow your search for the next sweet spot.

Moving from 1 advertising medium to the other will call for you to partially reinvent the wheel. i.e. I launched on a campaign on the radio this week that started online. While I’ve been able to narrow down the client demographic, benefits that cause conversions, and financial metrics to help improve the chances of success on the buy, I am nonetheless in new territory for this campaign. I will surely have to invest quite a bit of money to find those sweet spots on this advertising medium, but at the end of the day my other sweet spots are 100% financing it

Work to find your sweet spots and then let your sweet spots work for you

Jul 30 2012

How Great Things Happen!!

By Rich Gorman 2 Comments

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
Dutch painter

Jul 27 2012

F9 Refresh – It’s Good To Disconnect!!!

By Rich Gorman 2 Comments

When was the last time you completely disconnected from the hubbub of running your online business?

For the past 1 1/2 weeks I’ve had my mobile off, email disconnected, and practically no access to business life. As someone whose daily life consists of answering 400+ emails, making 100 calls, and hosting back-to-back meetings, disconnecting from it all was a shocker. It felt like I was a kid again to break free from all of the pressures of running online businesses!!!

The journey began on a Friday at 6pm. I wrapped up a meeting with my HR Manager, Sales Director, and top sales agent. I tasked them with discovering the best path forward on a project and to have a solution ready when I came back from vacation.

As soon as the meeting broke I did the following:

1. Deleted all email accounts from my iPhone. I needed my phone for a few more hours to make calls to friends/family.

2. Took auto responder’s live (actually did this earlier in the week out of anxiousness).

3. Packed up computer in a safe place where I wouldn’t be able to reach it.

After making a few dials to family/friends I turned off my mobile. With no computer/phone/and family around (they decided to go to the Jersey Shore early), it felt weird as hell. HA! No baby crying? No wife nagging! What in the world!!!!

That’s when the exhaustion hit me. I’d been hitting it so hard at work that the sudden downtime sent a wave of lethargy over my entire being. I stumbled into my room and slept for 16 hours straight! Running on 4-5 hours of sleep maximum every night, my body was craving a good night’s rest.

Over the next week I spent quality time with my kids, wife, parents, and close friends. My greatest joy in life is spending time with Alexis and Ryan, my 2 children. As the sole financial provider in my family, I work my ass off to ensure that my wife, kids, and parents are taken care of AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. After all, isn’t that every man’s job?

With that responsibility comes enormous sacrifice. Most notably I do not get to spend as much time as I’d like with my family. That’s why family vacations and total disconnects from technology are a MUST for me.

It’s now been a few days since my vacation ended. Jumping back into the grind I feel like a new man!!! I’m totally refreshed and super pumped up.

In the month of August we have a 20,000,000+ impression radio campaign launching and a muliple media buys lighting up. We’re going to see more traffic than we’ve ever seen before. Our super bowl is right around the corner and the team is rested up and ready to play to win!!!

Here’s 3 tips on how to disconnect from business life when you go on vacation:

1. Leave your phone and computer behind! The only true way to disconnect is to TOTALLY DISCONNECT.

2. Create an email account called: InterruptMyVacation@YourDomainName.com. Check that email account a few times during the week from someone else’s computer.

3. Relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor! Going on vacation is just about the only time that you should rest on your laurels

Jul 07 2012

3 Vanity Number Tricks In Direct Response Marketing

By Rich Gorman 8 Comments

Take a QUICK look at this toll free number: 866-497-6481.

Take one more QUICK look: 866-497-6481.

OK, now don’t look at it again. Instead look away and repeat it, saying it out loud. How did you do? (Don’t cheat )

The majority of your audience will have a difficult time remembering this number. Without a rhythm or cadence, it is very hard to a recall a seemingly random series of numbers.

In mobile, display, banner, radio, and TV advertising, you will gain a huge competitive advantage by using a vanity number. Vanity numbers are numbers that are easy to remember and have a cadence or rhyme to them. i.e. 1-800-800-8000.

There are three basic principles behind vanity numbers:

1. Use Vanity Numbers Use simple, repeatable numbers like 800-600-6060. I’ve seen the response from vanity numbers double that of non-vanity numbers. BOTTOM LINE: use vanity numbers on your campaigns!!!

2. Prepare The Listener For The Number (for Radio) Besides the number itself, the other component to vanity numbers is when to say the number and how often to say it. Radio is a linear medium, so it matters when you give the listener the number. They can only act when you tell them to act or have prepared them to act. So there is a time to provide them a number to prep them for action, and when to drive it home when you want them to act.

Remember the radio listener is also trying to hear your message, form an opinion and emotionally connect to the offer. Until they have reached that point they are not ready to act. Pushing the number too many times, or too early, could result in a shutdown of that process.

3. Eliminate Any Doubt From The Equation Finally, USE A TOLL FREE NUMBER THAT STARTS WITH A1-800. DO NOT USE 1-866. DO NOT USE 1-877. Consumers hesitate when they hear these prefixes. They still don’t think of them as “toll free”. That hesitation causes them to not recall the number, or refuse to call it altogether. That translates to wasted media spending.

On the surface, vanity numbers may seem like a small component of your overall direct response campaign…remember, it’s the aggregate of all “small components” that parlay into marketing that will give you competitive advantage over your competitors. In competitive verticals, when all else is equal, it’s the offer with the highest yield that wins. The proof is in the numbers

P.S. Our team is starting to delve into the world of DR TV, Radio, and PR. We’re working with a badass prime-time remnant media buying agency that writes the copy, records voice overs, and shoots production…FOR FREE. The min. spend to work with these guys is $50k a month and you need to be able to afford a few months. They are masters at the health & beauty game and are behind some of the largest brands in the world: Sensa, Hyroxatone, Jillean Michaels, ProActiv and many more. They also run TV / Radio for Rosetta Stone, Anthony Robbins, H&R Block, Ancestry.com, and many more big TV/Radio hits.

They’ve asked for me to keep their info confidential, however if you’re financially qualified and has a brand that is successful online, please leave a comment below with your brands name. I’ll email you from your comment if I think there’s a fit, and make an introduction accordingly.

Again, you have to have a brand that is doing well online and a min. spend of $50k per month for DR Radio/TV. Also, because they’re buying remnant prime time spots, you’re brand needs to have NOT yet received TV/Radio coverage. If it has then there is a conflict of interest as this agency buys remnant primetime only, which is a mere fraction of the pricing of direct prime time buys.

If you’re brand is accepted into their agency, then expect your phones to ring off the hook. These guys are masters at the Direct Response game and have sent hundreds of thousands of customers to brands that I work with!!!