31–40 of 50 posts
I don't buy it. Can you show me some statistics to prove that this (junk mail) works? I have always thought of junk mail as a last ditch effort. You have no other means to reach your customer, so you do the "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" approach.
I don't buy it. Can you show me some statistics to prove that this (junk mail) works? I have always thought of junk mail as a last ditch effort. You have no other means to reach your customer, so you do the "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" approach.
> Can you show me some statistics to prove that this (junk mail) works? Here are statistics that show that people respond to direct mail. This data is old (2003) but it's quite comprehensive. http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/disppressrelease?article=519
How about something published in a respectable peer-reviewed journal?
I don't buy it. Can you show me some statistics to prove that this (junk mail) works? I have always thought of junk mail as a last ditch effort. You have no other means to reach your customer, so you do the "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" approach.
I think his whole point is that junk mail's mere existence means that it works. Junk mailers pay real hard currency for every letter they send, so they've can't afford to use ineffective copy. Online, there is no cost to to sending an email, publishing a blog post, etc., so it's more difficult to determine what copy actually works.
I don't buy it. Can you show me some statistics to prove that this (junk mail) works? I have always thought of junk mail as a last ditch effort. You have no other means to reach your customer, so you do the "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" approach.
He's referring to those super long letters that are sent out, & they do work. The trick is not just in the copy, but also in the list. A good marketer will choose 10 lists or so, each targeting a slightly different demographic. To these lists the marketer will A/B test and see what the conversion rates are. After finding the best conversion rate, the rest of the campaign will go to the list that performs the best. Af…
It would be nice to see some studies in credible peer-reviewed journals about the efficacy of direct marketing at getting consumers to buy their products.
Though, from the quantity of junk mail that I've received, I personally have no doubt as to the efficacy of direct marketers at getting businesses to hire them. But that's a different thing from being effective at getting consumers to buy whatever it is they're selling.
i both agree and disagree. i disagree with the premise that years and years and billions of dollars have been spent, so it must be the best way. times are changing, people are changing. i've been trained to throw away every piece of junk mail, and so have most of my friends. junk mail is being actively read by a shrinking demographic. just because something has worked does not mean it will continue to do so, or that…
I think the point was to re-purpose the techniques from direct-mail advertising to match the next generation of direct response marketing (like emails and sales landing pages). Use the tools from the mailers in your emails or sales pages instead. You can't really 'throw away' a sales landing page the same way you would an unsolicited credit card offer, especially since you navigated to it in the first place.
I use the WH Method for my choices on fashion (when I bother to care about fashion): I pick a celebrity who looks rather well put together and similar to me in build, reason that celebrities are required to spend an inordinate amount of attention on fashion in order to maintain their marketability, and then wear/style however they do. It works out rather well.
I've also used the WH Method for doing basic site design in a documentation-happy environment. "Look, every other site with a similar purpose outside your market does their site design like this. You should have those elements as well, or users will be confused."
Working in Search marketing for a few years has taught me something similar about writing PPC ad-copy; if you want to see masters at work search for something like "Home Refinancing" and check out the ad-copy on the sponsored results. (These guys are paying $50+ per click. You can bet they know what they're doing; that is, they must if they're going to be doing it for any amount of time.)
Ask yourself this: Where would Tim (4-hour Workweek) Ferriss be without killer copy? He even tested to find the title for his book.
I don't buy it. Can you show me some statistics to prove that this (junk mail) works? I have always thought of junk mail as a last ditch effort. You have no other means to reach your customer, so you do the "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" approach.
Certain things are bulk mailed to an extremely large group of people, but this isn't always true. Targeting also does not have to be nonexistent. For example, you could go buy this list at ListSource (http://www.listsource.com/) for about $50:
All the people that live in the Bay Area that live in and own a 3 bedroom condo in a building that has more than 20 units that cost above $500,000 and was refinanced in the last 3 years.
You just can't get that with online targeting, and sometimes when search volume is low or CPCs are high this method becomes much more effective than online advertising.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think his whole point is that junk mail's mere existence means that it works. Junk mailers pay real hard currency for every letter they send, so they've can't afford to use ineffective copy. Online, there is no cost to to sending an email, publishing a blog post, etc., so it's more difficult to determine what copy actually works.
Or it could be that the old adage that "there's a sucker born every minute" applies not only to the consumers of junk mail, but to its purveyors as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or it could be that the old adage that "there's a sucker born every minute" applies not only to the consumers of junk mail, but to its purveyors as well.
You could say the same thing about online advertising though. Sure, some people waste money, but the bulk of people get value for the money they are spending or it would not continue to exist.
They may well continue to make money regardless, or for some other reason than the money they spend on direct marketing (or on online advertising, for that matter).
What we need are some serious studies published in peer reviewed journals that prove that direct marketing works, not claims that if it didn't work businesses wouldn't spend money on it.