Archive for the ‘Lead Generation’ Category

One of the first questions I ask every new Marketing Breakthrough member is, “Do you have a lead magnet?” or “Do you have a free report to collect contact information from prospects on your website?”

This is a critical component in every website because the vast majority of your visitors will not contact you or make a purchase right away.  Therefore, you must have a way to follow-up and the most effective way to get contact information is via a lead magnet.

When I first started doing these calls I would get really excited when the answer to my qusetion was yes.  I was pleasantly shocked because most businesses do NOT have a lead magnet.  I would then quickly move on to my next question in my auditing process and didn’t give it a second thought.

Eventually, I figured out I was making a mistake by not prying deeper to get more details.  I didn’t realize then that some folks believe ANY webform, located ANYWHERE on their website is a lead magnet.

Oh, how my heart sank every time the “lead magnet” turned out to be nothing more than a newsletter opt in box buried deep on the webpage.  After a few heartbreaks, I decided to clarify exactly what I mean when I ask, “Do you have a lead magnet?”

First of all, a lead magnet is not a newsletter subscription form on your website.  I strongly recommend every business use an email newsletter, but there is a big difference between a lead magnet and a newsletter sign up form.  Don’t fool yourself.  No one is really excited to subscribe to your email newsletter no matter how great it is.  It’s not sexy or compelling enough for most of your visitors.

So then, what is a lead magnet?  To answer that question, let’s take a look at the criteria I use to judge whether or not you have a lead magnet on your website:

Criteria #1: Compelling headline.  A lead magnet must have a sexy or compelling headline that is irresistible to your target prospects.

Criteria #2: Magnetically attracts your ideal prospect.  The compelling headline must call out directly to your ideal prospect and sometimes even repel unqualified folks.

Criteria #3: Pre-sells your product or service.  The information or tool you provide in exchange for contact information must pre-sell what you’re ultimately trying to sell.

Criteria #4: Includes a call-to-action.  The final element is your call to action to contact you or purchase your product or service.  Collecting contact information is great because now you can follow up, but the goal is to close the deal as soon as possible.  If you did a good job pre-selling, then the next logical step should be to make a purchase.  Clearly explain the next steps so your prospect can call you, come into your store or office, or order online.

If you don’t have all 4 criteria above, then you don’t have a lead magnet (yet).   For more information about how to create a lead magnet, read the How to Create a ‘Lead Magnet’ Marketing Action Guide in the Main Street Inner Circle members area.

Last Friday I had lunch with an old college friend and her boyfriend, Tim.  Tim has been working on a new minimalist running shoe for the past two years and he’s just about ready to bring it to market.  Hence, the meeting with me to pick my brain about next steps.

If you know anything about my extracurricular activities, then you can see why this would be a match made in heaven.  Not only do I love running, but I just so happen to run in huarache sandals.  That’s as minimalist as you can get without running barefoot.  (By the way, I ran barefoot for a while until Erin threatened to leave me if I didn’t wear something on my feet… sandals were the compromise. )

So there I was, sitting in a French Bistro with the sun beaming outside the window, just as happy as can be talking about the two things I love almost as much as my family: online marketing and minimalist running. I figure I have to wait about 10 years in order to combine all three when Violet starts running. :)

During our conversation Tim asked about SEO and AdWords advertising.  He was curious to learn more and see which one was a better fit.

My answer? Hands down AdWords advertising is where he should focus his attention.  Of course, he shouldn’t ignore SEO completely, but that’s not the path to profitability and sustainability if you’re launching a new product or service.

I’ll also point out the fact that Tim did not even bring up social media.  If he had, then my answer does not change.  Social media is not your answer when you’re just starting out.

Tim’s #1 priority in the short term is to find his ideal selling strategy. In other words, he needs to figure out as quickly as possible the optimal price point, sales copy, website layout, cart abandonment follow-up sequences, upsells, retargeting sequences, referral programs, and iron out any kinks in the delivery and return processes.

So how the heck do you do all of that?

Well you start by driving a consistent, dependable stream of traffic to your website and then you systematically test all of the moving parts in your sales path.  That’s the basic process to find your ideal selling strategy.  It’s not rocket science, but it does take time, discipline, and the most important variable is traffic.  Without a consistent stream of high quality prospects, then you can’t test anything.

And neither SEO nor social media will reliably provide this type of traffic.  That’s why online search advertising like Google AdWords is the best place to start.  As long as your ideal customers are going to Google to find your product or service, then AdWords is the best option available.  Focus on optimizing your selling path and then when you’re ready to expand your marketing, invest more into other channels like SEO or social media.

On a Marketing Breakthrough call a few weeks ago, I was speaking with a business owner about online advertising, and I recommended display advertising as a new channel that she had not yet tested.  I knew there were relevant websites online for her business and at the time she was only advertising in search engines like Google.

Her reply caught me off guard because I didn’t realize there was such a misconception about Search vs. Display advertising.  She said, “We don’t have the budget for branding ad campaigns.  We need to focus on lead generation ads.”

I couldn’t agree more with focusing on lead generation vs. branding ads.  But that’s not what I suggested.  Display advertising is NOT just a channel for branding.  No more than TV, radio, billboards, or print ads are only for branding.  All can and should be used for direct response advertising.

I believe the misconception stems partly from to the pricing models.  With many display advertising networks, you’ll pay for impressions rather than clicks.  So unlike search advertising where you’re paying for an actual click (or visitor), you’ll pay for an ad impression (or ad view) on display networks.  That leads people to believe display ads are for brand impressions rather than traffic.

Makes sense until you realize you can easily convert ad impression costs into click costs.  Just divide your total cost by total clicks.  Bingo! Now you’re back to a cost per click model and you can analyze and optimize just like your search campaigns.

Let’s use one of my clients as an example.  And we’ll take this a step further and use YouTube video ads as the example.  I imagine there are plenty of folks who believe YouTube video ads are exclusively for branding on a big budget.  But that’s simply not true.

My client’s goal was to generate webinar subscribers.  This is a classic lead generation campaign where we measured conversions based on the number of actual webinar registrants.

Here are the numbers for the video ad:

• 8,200 = unique video views
• $0.24 = cost per view
• 970 = total clicks (or visitors)

Based on those numbers we can easily calculate our cost per click to be $2.03.  So we were able to generate relevant traffic for $2.03 per visitor.  110 people registered for the webinar so our cost per registrant was $17.89.  Not very good, but this was our first test and we have a lot of room to improve the sales funnel.  Plus, this particular client is selling products priced at $250,000 so 1 sale will easily make this campaign profitable.

My hope is you can see with this example that display ads can be used for direct response campaigns.  Just because you’re paying per impression or per video view, that does not limit your options.  It just creates a little more work for you to calculate the cost per click and cost per conversion.

It may come as a surprise to hear that I generally avoid new gadgets and software. I find new technology is a blessing and a curse. Mostly a curse though.  I’m not a tech geek despite the fact that I live and breath online marketing.  It’s even harder to believe once you learn that I studied mechanical engineering for 6 years and almost every project involved the latest gadgets and software.  I guess I grew out of that phase. :)

Like everyone, I’m a creator of habit and I really do not like to learn a new way to do essentially the same thing.  Take Microsoft Office as an example.  Did they really need to overhaul their user interface so old shortcuts no longer work and it’s nearly impossible to find simple tools?  The answer is no, they did not…

OK, I’ll stop complaining.  My point is I completely understand the hesitation to install, learn, train, and fully utilize a new piece of software or tool in your business.  It is NEVER as easy as those slick salespeople make it out to be.  “Push button” must have a different meaning in sales versus implementation.

There is one glaring exception to my rule. I absolutely love marketing automation tools.  More specifically, I love Infusionsoft.  In the spirit of full disclosure, we use Infusionsoft at Main Street ROI and we have a referral partnership with them.  That means we earn a very small commission on any business we send their way. But that’s not why I’m writing this and it’s certainly not why I personally installed, set up, and trained several private clients on the Infusionsoft platform.

The reason is because it works.  It increases your sales by automating your follow-up and fulfillment processes.

Infusionsoft is the best tool I’ve found (and believe me, I’ve searched far and wide) to automate your follow-up via email, phone, and direct mail.  It’s also great for segmenting your email database so you can send targeted email broadcasts to specific groups of people like customers of a certain product or service, lost proposals, old customers, prospects who requested a certain report, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a “push button” solution.  It’s real work to set this up.  But once you do set it up, then the system does ALL the hard work for you, behind the scenes, with no additional work on your part.  Think of it like hiring a large team of sales and fulfillment folks who you don’t have to manage, you don’t pay commissions to, and you only have to train ONE time.

Here’s a very basic example of what you can do with a tool like Infusionsoft.

When you sign up for Main Street Inner Circle, then your account is automatically created on our website via a message from the Infusionsoft order form.  Plus, an email alert is sent to our member services manager, Andrea, to call and welcome you to our family.  Another message is sent to our printer to print, stuff, and mail the welcome package as quickly as possible.  And emails are automatically sent to provide more information and help you get the most out of your membership.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.  If you’ve ever signed up for one of our webinars, then you are familiar with our SMS reminders that automatically go out to everyone who registered with a cell phone number.

I could go on and on, but you really need to see it for yourself.  If you want to learn more, then I recommend you click here to attend a free demo.

I heard something interesting on a call with Pete the other day.  He said one of the members in his mastermind does not want leads.  He’s not interested in lead generation for his business.  He only wants customers.

I doubt this business owner is alone.  In your business, do you want leads or do you only want customers?

In my mind it’s a huge red flag if you do not want leads at all.  That means an important piece of your marketing system is broken and I’ll explain how to fix it in this article.

Why Businesses Do Not Want Leads

We’ve all read studies that show people who inquire about products or services tend to make a purchase in the not-too-distant future.  That’s the big argument for follow-up marketing.  We know this, but businesses still say they do not want leads!  Why?

Well if you’re involved in sales, then you know most leads do not convert into customers.  It’s just the nature of the game.  And it can be physically and mentally draining to comb through your  list of “leads” each and every day praying for one to close.

Typically there’s a love-hate relationship with leads.  Every new lead comes with a rush of excitement like opening up a gift.  But then as the lead “ages” and does not buy right away, we tend to lose interest like children discarding old toys in favor of the new shiny object.

Leads can equate to frustration and failure, which is the main reason why businesses don’t want them in the first place.  But the solution to not generate leads is ridiculous!  That’s not solving the right problem.

The Real Problem Is Your Marketing

The real problem is that you do not have a practical, working marketing system to follow-up, nurture, and convert leads into customers.  If you had a system, then leads wouldn’t be so bad.  In fact, with proper tracking and a good marketing system, you can actually put an average dollar amount on each and every lead that comes into your sales funnel.

With technology today, the system can (and should) be almost completely automated using tools like Infusionsoft or AWeber.  Both can be set up to automatically follow up with leads via email and send alerts to your sales team to make calls or send letters.  This sort of automation makes leads a whole lot less frustrating because you no longer need to manually do a lot of the repetitive work.

Let’s say you do this, and you find that every lead who requests some information online is worth $5 to your business.  What happens then if you can advertise and generate a lead for $3?  Instead of advertising to generate sales immediately, you advertise to generate leads via an online request form.  If that’s the case, then you just opened up your sales funnel… and you can profitably scale up advertising and grow your business so much faster!

Remember, if you’re down on lead generation, then that means your marketing is broken.  Create an effective marketing system with automated follow-up, and you’ll see leads in a whole new light.

Last year I wrote about how congruence is the secret to advertising success and in this article I’m going to take it one step further due to some recent mobile device trends.  In that article I argued that many advertisers suffer from Campaign Tunnel Vision, which occurs when you focus too much time and effort on just one piece of the sales funnel at the expense of all the other key areas.

For example, it’s easy to get caught up optimizing different areas of your campaign in isolation, without taking a step back and measuring the effects on your entire sales funnel.  That’s Campaign Tunnel Vision.  The fact is, you can “optimize” bids, ads, and landing pages separately, but fail to increase your overall sales conversion rates.  Now, that’s what we call spinning your wheels!

The solution to this problem is congruence.  You must have a consistent message from the keywords and webpages you’re targeting, all the way through the ads, landing pages, offers, and even in-bound phone call scripts.  Any inconsistencies are like the chutes in the children’s game, Chutes and Ladders, that will throw your prospects out of the sales funnel and likely to your competitors.

According to a recent study by Google, we now have a new chute to watch out for…

Your Prospects Now Use Multiple Devices

In Google’s analysis of multi-device behavior, they found 90% of the 1,611 responders said they use multiple devices to complete an online task.  That could be switching from desktop to a smartphone or maybe a tablet over to a laptop.  Personally, I can remember several times when I looked for a nearby store on my laptop and then moved to my smartphone to find the exact directions en-route.  Another likely scenario is when you find something cool on your phone, but then you switch over to your desktop to do more research to ultimately make the purchase.

I’m sure you get the point… your prospects are using more than one device to find products and services.  Here’s another interesting fact from the study:  98% of those responders completed the task in the same day. Can you see now how your advertising campaign has a new chute where prospects are sliding out of the sales funnel?

Well if it’s not clear yet, then this final fact will certainly tie it all together.  The Google study found that consumers rely on search to move between devices.  So when your prospect finds you on a desktop, then she will then most likely go to Google to try to find you on her mobile phone or tablet, or vice versa.

Congruence Across Devices Is Now Critical

There are two key takeaways from this research.  First, you now need to target all devices in your search advertising campaigns so you actually show up when your prospects switch from one device to the other.  Otherwise, you’re going to lose sales when prospects simply can’t find you on the “other device.”

Second, you now need to ensure your sales messages are congruent across devices!  What happens if your prospect finds your ad on her desktop and then moves over to her mobile phone?  Does the same ad with the same offer show up?  Is it even possible to redeem the offer on your mobile friendly website?  Do you even have a mobile site that your prospect will be able to navigate with her thumbs?

All those questions now need to be answered in our new multi-device world.  It’s not enough to optimize your campaign for desktops and mobile devices separately.  That’s what I call Device Tunnel Vision :)

Over the past several months, I’ve been repeating the same advice again and again to our private clients, Inner Circle members, and customers.

Here’s my advice: Dumb It Down.

If you want to double your conversion rate — so more people contact you and do business with you — then you should make it blatantly obvious what people are supposed to do when they land on your website.

Why is it important to “dumb down” your message?

There are 2 good reasons actually:

1. People are really impatient online

When people land on your website, they want to know — right away — whether they’re in the right place. They don’t want to waste a single second. If they don’t see what they’re looking for, they’re gone.

2. Not everyone is as smart as you

Sad but true: the average American reads at a 7th or 8th grade reading level. So skip the big words, and keep it simple. A good rule of thumb is to write like you speak. Keep it conversational and you’ll get better conversion rates.

One of the biggest leverage points in your marketing is your landing page conversion rate – the percentage of people who contact you (or buy from you) when they land on your website.

(In case you’re not familiar with the term “landing page,” it’s the page on your website where you direct people when you want them to take a specific action. It’s called a “landing” page because it’s where a person lands on your website from an advertisement or an email promotion, etc.)

OK, back to my advice…

I’ve repeatedly found that when it comes to landing page design, the simpler you can make it, the better.

Specifically, the more obvious you can make your call-to-action, the better. Seriously, just make it incredibly obvious what your website visitor is supposed to do, and you’ll improve your conversion rate.

Here’s an example of an incredibly simple (and very high-converting) landing page we’ve been testing recently:

As you can see, it’s blatantly obvious what you’re supposed to do. That’s right — you’re supposed to enter your email address to get the SEO checklist.

And because it’s so simple, it converts really well.

(If you want to see this landing page in action, click here.)

In a recent promotion we did, we had a whopping 79.7% of the website visitors who landed on this page enter their email address to get the free SEO checklist.

And I’m not talking about a tiny sample size, either… That was the average conversion rate  after 1,174 clicks. That’s one of the highest landing page conversion rates we’ve ever experienced — and it’s all because of how simple the design is.

(Kudos to Ryan at Digital Marketer for the inspiration.)

So let me ask you a question…

Are You Being Too Smart?

Many people will read this advice and brush it off. They’ll assume that my advice is too simple to possibly work. They’re looking for a very complicated cure to fix their advertising.

But that’s a mistake. Instead, I recommend you make things so clear and obvious that it’s incredibly easy for more people to respond.

Your landing page conversion rate is a HUGE leverage point. If you can double your landing page conversion rate, then you’ll get twice as many leads. If you’re advertising in Google AdWords, that might mean you could afford to spend twice as much per click as your competitors. And that means you can buy more traffic than your competitors, which means you gain more market share.

If you want to double your landing page conversion rates, my advice is to dumb it down.

Here’s What To Do Now

Load up your landing page on your computer screen, and take a few steps back. Is it obvious what to do? If not, then dumb it down…

Next, grab somebody who doesn’t work with you — somebody who hasn’t visited your landing page before. Ask them to take a look at your landing page, and ask them if it’s obvious what to do. If it’s not obvious, then dumb it down some more…

Finally, once you’re satisfied that your page is already obvious, go one step further. And make it blatantly obvious.  For example, make the text or button of your call-to-action bigger and more prominent, so it’s even more obvious what to do.

(Seriously, we’ve run tests before where  increasing the size of the call-to-action button on a landing page provided an extra boost of 10% of more.)

So, don’t be afraid to make your landing page brain-dead simple. I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.

What would happen to your business if you could double your profits generated from Google AdWords advertising? Well, if you’re not advertising in AdWords, then I admit that wouldn’t have much of an effect. :)

However, the tactics I’m about to share in this article are not specific to AdWords. So what would happen if you could double your profits from ALL of your advertising?

That would be a game-changer. Doubling profits could instantly convert a flailing business on the brink of bankruptcy, to a growing empire on pace to acquire or eliminate all competitors. Of course, it also means more money in your bank account, which everyone loves (except that baby in the Capital One commercials…).

But do you honestly believe me when I say you can double your profits with only 20% improvements? That’s a bold claim so I expect some skepticism. I mean how can small 20% improvements possibly double your overall profits?

Well let’s take a closer look at the numbers. I promise if you bear with my brief math lesson, then you’ll have the keys to unlock massive profits from all of your advertising, including Google AdWords.

First, let’s define the 4 critical areas in any advertising campaign:

1. Response Rate = Your click-through rate for online ads.  This is how many people respond to your ad campaign.
2. Conversion Rate = Number of sales divided by number of responders/clicks on your ads.
3. Avg. Transaction Value = Average dollar amount of revenue per sale
4. Avg. 90 Day Value = Average dollar amount of future sales revenue within a 90 day period.  This is sometimes called lifetime value or backend value.

It turns out, if you improve each of the four areas above by a mere 20%, then you will double your profits.  This isn’t theory.  I’m talking about basic, elementary school arithmetic here.  And I’ll give you an example so you see this in action.

Below is a chart with an example Search Google AdWords campaign on the left, and another campaign with 20% improvements in the four areas.

As you can see, all we did here was improve the 4 areas of the campaign by 20% and we went from $2,500 profit to $5,400.  That’s MORE than double! And you can run this analysis with any numbers you want on the left hand side.  You’ll always double your profits if you improve each of the 4 areas by 20%.

20% is not very hard.  Here are some ideas for each of the 4 areas.

Response Rates:

• Use a benefit focused headline in your ad
• Promise to answer a question you know your prospect is seeking to answer

Conversion Rates:

• Create scripts for in-bound phone calls to ensure every call is handled properly
• Make your offer irresistible by shifting the risk from your prospect to your company

Avg. Transaction Value:

• Raise your prices by highlighting the true value you provide to your customers (i.e. time savings, long term money savings, future profits, etc.)
• Offer additional products or services at the point of sale that will make your customer’s life even easier/better

Avg. 90 Day Value:

• Offer additional products or services after your customer is satisfied with the first purchase
• Set up a referral system so that every new customer is worth at least one more customer.  That can quickly double the 90 day value.

Those are just a few ideas to get you started.  Now that you know you can more than double your profits, you should have all the motivation you need to start systematically improving your ad campaigns.  Good luck testing!

Phil

P.S. If you’re just getting started with Google AdWords, and you want to avoid costly mistakes…

Or, if you’re already advertising with AdWords and want expert shortcuts to increase your profits…

I’m inviting you to apply for my upcoming AdWords Jumpstart class.

Class starts Monday, January 7, 2012. Limited to 10 students, by application only.

Sign up to learn more and apply:
http://mainstreetroi.com/adwords-early-bird

“Early Bird” Discount Ends Soon!

We’re offering a special “early bird” discount when you apply early.

Click here to learn more and apply

Over the past few months, we’ve been focusing more and more of our energy on referral marketing partnerships, for 2 big reasons:

Reason #1. Your customers want and need more services and solutions than you can possibly provide to them. And therefore, you should establish relationships with other companies that you can recommend to your customers.

Reason #2. These other companies can send customers your way, too. And everybody knows that referrals are the highest quality prospects you can receive.

Maybe I’ve just opened your eyes to the power of reciprocal referral partnerships. (And in the online marketing world, we commonly refer to these types of arrangements as “joint ventures.”)

I’m going to assume that you already understood these 2 things, at least in principle. If you aren’t currently using referral marketing partnerships in your business, I think it’s probably because you’re lacking specific ideas for how you can get started.

So, in this article, I’m going to briefly walk through some of the different arrangements we’re creating with partners, and maybe it’ll spark an idea or two for how you can do something similar in your business.

(And if you own a company that provides marketing services or tools and you’re interested in partnering with us, contact us and let’s start a dialog).

Here are 3 ways we’re using joint ventures in our business.

Joint Venture Example #1. Swapping Referrals

Here’s what we’re doing:

We created the Main Street Marketing Network to introduce our customers to high-quality marketing providers. And often many of the companies in our network will reciprocate and recommend our products and services to their audiences.

How you can use this idea?

No matter what business you’re in, there are products or services that your customers may want, but that you don’t provide. Identify what companies provide those complementary products and services, and start a dialog. For example, if you’re a chiropractor, maybe you’d want to partner up with a massage therapist and trade referrals.

Joint Venture Example #2. Offering Freebies and Discounts

Here’s what we’re doing:

We host free events (such as The Death of “Old-School” SEO teleseminar on Halloween) and we then encourage our partners to invite their audiences to attend.

How you can use this idea?

When you trade referrals, I recommend that you create a special offer, such as a free consultation, in order to make it easier and more compelling for your partners’ customers to say “Yes!”

Joint Venture Example #3. Sharing the Spotlight

Here’s what we’re doing:

We’re inviting guest experts to participate in live interviews (such as our most recent interview with Kim DeYoung about how to create joint ventures). We invite our audience to attend the calls, and our guests typically invite their audiences to attend, as well.

How you can use this idea?

You can put on events with other companies (either virtually or in your “brick and mortar” place of business), and invite your audiences to attend.

Pick One, And Get Started!

Can you use any of these ideas? I hope so… and I recommend you choose the one idea that seems most promising based on your current opportunities and relationships, and then take the next step forward while it’s fresh in your mind.

Pete

P.S. One final note…

It may months (or even years) for new relationships to blossom into meaningful profit-generating partnerships. But it’s worth it. A solid partner network is one of the most valuable assets you can build in your business.

So, use the 2-year test.

If you’re not confident you’ll want to be collaborating with a potential partner in 2 years, then you should probably skip that partner opportunity. Be picky and only partner with people you’ll want to associate with over the long-term.

The other day, I received a letter in the mail and I didn’t respond.  And in today’s article, I want to explain why I didn’t respond.

Business owners and marketers spend a lot of time trying to get people to respond, but they spend too little time addressing the many reasons why people don’t respond. If you want to increase response, you also need to plug the holes in your bucket.

So, I got this letter from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Let me show it to you, so you can see what it was like for me to receive this letter in the mail…

Here’s the envelope (my name and address appeared in the plastic window – I removed that part)

Here’s the letter:

I realize it’s probably hard to read the text in the image above, so here’s how the letter begins:

“Be the FIRST to experience phenomenal works of art… and get two museums for the price of one.”

“When you’re a member of the Fine Arts Museums, you can be among the first in the Bay Area to experience remarkable exhibitions…”

OK, so what’s the problem here?

No “Reason Why”

Whenever you receive mail from somebody you don’t know personally, what’s your first question?

That’s right. You want to know “Why am I getting this?  How did they get my name?”

The Fine Arts Museums did NOT answer that question. They ignored Robert Collier’s famous advice to “enter the conversation in the prospect’s mind.” Instead, they just launched into their offer without connecting it to me and my personal situation.

Here’s what the Fine Arts Museums could have written to me if they wanted to convince me (personally) to read their letter and then respond to their membership offer…

“Why am I writing to you?

I was comparing records with my friends over at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in Manhattan and they said you were a member there a few years ago. I looked you up and saw that you recently moved to San Francisco, and you haven’t joined our museums.

Also, a little birdie told me that your parents were recently visiting you in San Francisco — and they visited our museums and LOVED them but you still haven’t been once…

And I want to fix that, right now.  I’m writing you today to give you a special offer on our membership.

Here’s my offer to you: Join as a member today and you’ll be able to visit our museums as many times as you like over the next 2 months for FREE.   I’m willing to make that offer because I know that once you see all the amazing exhibits we have, you’ll want to keep coming back again and again, month after month, year after year.

After all… Don’t you want your 2-month old son Ian to be exposed to fine art so he grows up to be a perfect little cultured gentleman?”

If they had written that to me, I’d probably be a member right now.

Now, obviously, I was having a little fun there. There’s no way that the Fine Arts Museums could have known all of that about me or my parents, etc. But they could have said something to tie the letter and membership offer to me personally. After all, there IS a reason why they’re writing to me, isn’t there?

They’re not writing to every name in the phone book or else they’d go broke. They got my name and address somehow, and they think there’s a good reason why I’d be interested in their offer — otherwise they wouldn’t be spending the $1 to send this letter.

And for these reasons, they should explain why they’re writing to me and why I should take advantage of their offer.

Big Lesson: As advertising man John E. Kennedy explained over 100 years ago, you should always reveal your “reason why” — why you’re contacting your prospects or customers, why you’re making a special offer, why there’s a discount, why there’s a deadline, etc. — in order to decrease skepticism and increase engagement with your message.

I don’t want to be too harsh. The letter wasn’t all bad. There was a special offer for new members (although it could have been stronger).  But, for me at least, this letter didn’t do its job.

It didn’t sell me. Instead, it left me wondering why I got the letter. It left me alone to try and sell myself on why I should join. If I was going to sign up, I had to connect the dots. And that’s too much work — I’ve got too much else going on in my life to sell myself on signing up for this.

Maybe I’ll visit and join at some point… But I’ll go when I want to go, not when they want me to go — and that means, from a direct-response standpoint, this letter failed (at least for me).

I’ll tweet this out to the social media folks over the Fine Arts Museums (@deyoungmuseum, @legionofhonor) and see what they think of my direct mail tips. Maybe the social media people will talk to the direct mail people and they’ll consider some of my advice here.  I’ll be watching to see what they send me next… :)

Pete

P.S. Can you spot any other major “mistake” or weakness in this mailing or reason why I might not have responded? I’ll give you a hint: the late great Gary Halbert would not be impressed… I’ll follow up with another article next week to reveal my other big suggestion for boosting response from this mailing.