Magalog copy to internet salesletters: STS tips..

[John Newtson]

FYI -- Before answering the traffic question, I want to verify it's cool with the client. I'll let you know one way or the other. You guys are right: That is a very telling piece of the puzzle.

Julie's the real expert on the media side of this so, hopefully we can get her to weigh in again on that.

Dan: ROI is much, much better online. Because costs are so much lower without printing and mailing and with so many relatively low-cost ways to drive traffic online your ROI goes up.

John

[Julie McManus]

Originally Posted by John Newtson

Julie's the real expert on the media side of this so, hopefully we can get her to weigh in again on that.

Dan: ROI is much, much better online. Because costs are so much lower without printing and mailing and with so many relatively low-cost ways to drive traffic online your ROI goes up.

John

Sure John, glad to weigh in.

To get a good picture of the ways I'm driving traffic to this promo I'm going to point you back to my issue.

http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.../view/192/161/

I'm currently buying media in what I call passive and active media categories and I'm having tremendous success in both.

The core factor I look at is demographic, physcographic and traffic when looking for potential websites ... and in my issue next Friday, I'll talk a lot more about my media selection criteria.

When buying media on the web, it's extremely important to understand your customers.

Here's an example -- one might immediately think that a site like alternativemedicine.com might be a great site to promote a natural health supplement product such as this one. But one quick look at the sites demographic tells me that it skews younger and female. All though the physcographic is there, the demographic is not. The core demographic for this product is older and male.

What this means is that I wouldn't neccessarily rule out testing a site like alternativemedicine.com, but I wouldn't test it until I was sure I had my core universe covered -- rich, old, conservative, white guys.

The challenge is to find out where the rich, old, conservative, white guys like to hang out on the web ... news sites, financial sites, politically conservative sites ... I'm sure you get the picture.

When you find them, then you can take a look at the overall traffic to determine whether the sites are active. But keep in mind, just because a site doesn't have huge traffic doesn't mean it's not viable.

And that's where cost comes in to play. You can buy media from sites with lower traffic numbers, but the costs to advertise should be lower to match the amount of traffic.

Bottomline: When testing a new site, it's important to take as many different positions as you can afford to test. Some will cost more and some will cost less -- but you'll learn a lot about the best positions for your offers and what CPM you can afford to pay to break even or better.

The question was asked "why is ROI so much higher on the web?" And John's answer of cost is a huge factor. The web is much cheaper, but also keep in mind that often direct mail campaigns are carefully crafted to just break even to bring in mass amounts of new customers. This isn't as easy to do online. So ROIs can swing wildly high and wildly low depending on placement and site all for the very same offer.

Hope this helps and please check out next Fridays issue.

Best,

Julie

[sswriter]

Thanks again, Julie.

Per your suggestion, I started searching for sites where my target market would likely be browsing. The first site I went to was using software from http://www.addesktop.com. I did some more exploring, and found that this software is from http://www.burstmedia.com

Apparently, they have done quite a bit of demographic research, and you can see the demographics of any of the categories. I am assuming that once you sign up, you can see the demographics of the subcategories, but they don't show that on the web site. I've sent an email inquiry to them to get pricing and more information on how I can place the ad on specific targets sites. They make it had to order from them - no ordering can be done online, and they show no pricing. This is a BIG red flag for me. Any time I've seen this, the prices have been outrageously high, but they have some high-pressure sales person on the phone.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Sid

[Ascendedmind]

John, I am surprised that this online magalog does not show a photo of multiple bottles per option just like the offline magalogs do.

For example if you buy 6-month supply you will get an additional 3-month supply free. Then show a photo of 6 bottles plus 3 additional bottles.

My competitors do this selling a supplement for men's erection problems.

And they do this on the salesletter page.

EndureRx Male Sexual Supplement this site shows photos of bottles

Looking for a Viagra alternative? Introducing the most powerful erection pill this site does not show photo of bottles just text.

[John Newtson]

John, I am surprised that this online magalog does not show a photo of multiple bottles per option just like the offline magalogs do.

That's a excellent point. And actually most of these landing pages do just that (I'll see if I can dig up some more links). I was just talking to David Dittman who lays out most of Clayton's landing pages and that's exactly how he handles it because it dimensionalizes what you get so vividly.

My understanding is that his page was an older design and hasn't been updated to the newer format they're using.

John

[AndrewCavanagh]

I was doing it before I ever read "Steal These Secrets" but it is relevant.

If you follow the offline magalog style the closest thing online is probably the report.

Recently I doubled the response of an online sales letter by changing from a regular sales letter style to leading with a headline and opening that made the website look like a free report.

(This sales page had significant traffic and the owner was split testing so the results are significant.)

I also noticed experienced online copywriter Bob Serling is sending many of his sales letters for high end products as "valuable pdf reports" you can download free.

Again this is an online equivalent of the magalog.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[Ascendedmind]

John another thing I noticed is that the magalog salesletter does not fearure any "click here" links placed at every 350 words or so.

Apparently John Reese has tested this direct response technique in his traffic secrets salesletter written by Michael Fortin.

They found that people were sold at various points through out the letter as some people are ready to buy at some point in the copy.

The salesletter was friggin long like over 75 pages I believe. It was not a magalog... it was virtually a book or a preponderance of evidence.

John has Clayton considered testing the click here links too see at what point most people are ready to take action in his online copy?

Originally Posted by John Newtson

That's a excellent point. And actually most of these landing pages do just that (I'll see if I can dig up some more links). I was just talking to David Dittman who lays out most of Clayton's landing pages and that's exactly how he handles it because it dimensionalizes what you get so vividly.

My understanding is that his page was an older design and hasn't been updated to the newer format they're using.

John

[marketinguru]

Hi to everyone from Italy! Enjoy these 2 amazing examples of webalogs!
I'm not 100% sure, is it possible these come from Mr. Clayton?

A Special Report on Digestive Health, page 1

Dr. Sinatra Newsletter Offer: Medicine Chest Murders


Marco