A minor complaint

[firegold21]

It may be minor, but it's common. And getting more common every day.

In today's world of smart phones, iPhones, mobile computing devices, etc., more and more people are checking email and following links on their phones while at work, out to eat, in the car or just out in general. Including links to sales letters.

Sales letters tend to be long format, which works, and often there's a newsletter sign-up popup box as well, or a video. Problem is, all those are formatted for regular computers, not for the mobile market. For example, iPhones can't display Flash, so your wonderful sales video can't be seen on it. And the long sales letter which requires scrolling even on a desktop computer requires ten times the amount of scrolling on a smart phone.

My question is ... have those devices taken up enough of a foothold to warrant building a redirect to a mobile-friendly version of your sales letter into your existing pages?

I can't tell you how many times I've checked my email on my iPhone, seen a sales pitch from a marketer that makes me want to visit the page right then and there, only to find I can't watch the video, or I can't hear the audio, or it takes 30 minutes to read the sales letter because of how long it is (I often skim a little bit on the desktop; on my iPhone, I'm forced to skim almost all the time ... which dilutes the impact of the letter because I'm then shopping on price only).

I know there are plenty of easy ways to detect what browser or platform a surfer is using and provide a customized page. It can take extra work to get all that in place, especially for existing sales pages. My question is simply is it worth it?

Do you think it's worth the time and effort to make a mobile-friendly version as well as a regular version, or is it enough to target only the lion's share the desktop/laptop world has?

Joshua

PS. In case it's not obvious, I'm leaning toward including the mobile audience, though I haven't implemented that yet aside from using YouTube videos, which can be played on the iPhone.

[lakshaybehl]

Josh,

I have been wondering the same thing myself for some time now, though didn't do anything with it.

Let's see what others have to say.

[Mrs S]

Josh - you make a very good point. I have an iPhone myself and it's frustrating when I can't view videos embedded in sites - plus even with the functionality it's hard to read traditional pages online and I much appreciate the mobile version.

I use WPTouch to render my wordpress blogs mobile friendly - but would definitely be interested in learning more about how to replicate for websites.

[Aronya]

One consideration that comes to mind immediately is that if you need long sales copy in the first place, cutting it down to be more convenient for mobile devices would likely work against you. I'd think you'd have to use a completely different technique to make that work. Instead, I think WordPro is onto a better solution - the audio, anyway.

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by WordPro

Besides which, I've got one of those sexy British accents.

Thirty years of watching Monty Python and Doctor Who have given me a whole selection of them.

There's an interesting question. We know from the market research of the Big Boys that American audiences respond well to British accents. Does it matter whether they're real?

[Scott Murdaugh]

I check most of my email from my Blackberry.

I agree, it's worth taking notice of, and most sales letters look like crap on my mobile browser.

This could be a nice opportunity for someone who's technically inclined to create a product that detects the browser and redirects the visitor to the appropriate sales letter.

That person isn't me, but if anyone knows of a solution I'd probably buy it, I think the amount of people who do check email on a phone is a large enough group to warrant a little bit of extra effort.

Then again, how often do you buy stuff from your phone? Especially downloadable content?

I never do... I have apps to shop on Ebay and stuff, but for shopping I still use the computer for the most part.

-Scott

[Daniel Scott]

Originally Posted by BlackShirt100

I agree. Sales pitch sites with videos, music or that are overly long usually always get ignored by me.

Congratulations on completely missing the point.

-Dan

[Aronya]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

We know from the market research of the Big Boys that American audiences respond well to British accents. Does it matter whether they're real?

I think it only matters if we can tell that they're NOT real. Goes to the whole trust issue.

I'm still not decided if I trust that gecko...

[MikeHumphreys]

Originally Posted by Aronya

I think it only matters if we can tell that they're NOT real. Goes to the whole trust issue.

I'm still not decided if I trust that gecko...

Well... ask yourself... if a company spends millions of dollars telling everyone how cheap their service may be, then couldn't they offer even cheaper rates if they ran a lot less ads? Food for thought.

[Mark McClure]

In Japan, mobile Internet use is very popular.

I'm not certain if you can see these sites outside of Japan IP-land, but if you're lucky you'll get two very cute J-girls wearing some Bambi t-shirts. 'course I didn't look too closely...

Disney.jp | ƒ‚ƒoƒCƒ‹ | ƒfƒBƒYƒj�[�EƒIƒtƒBƒVƒƒƒ‹�Eƒz�[ƒ€ƒy�[ƒW

http://home.disney.co.jp/ (mobile button is top menu, far right.)

Catalog copy writing skills will come in useful writing for an audience using mobile phones (Keitai, in Japanese). I saw an ad here recently announcing the start of a book service on Keitais.
If you've seen packed commuter trains here you'll understand why devices like the Kindle don't really scale... too big.

[dave830]

I personally think in a few years smart phones will be able to emulate everything (nearly) that the web does... flash videos, etc. I'm not rushing to make mobile friendly versions of every site. That technology is advancing too quickly..

[BigVin]

I won't run PPC ads on mobile networks because of this. If you can't clearly communicate your pitch (or it is bad timing) then I'm not paying for it.

[Aronya]

Originally Posted by MikeHumphreys

Well... ask yourself... if a company spends millions of dollars telling everyone how cheap their service may be, then couldn't they offer even cheaper rates if they ran a lot less ads? Food for thought.

Not necessarily.

Let's say you sell 1,000,000 widgets per year.
They cost you $1 each. - $1 x 1,000,000 = $1 million
You sell them for $2 each. You net $1 million per year.

If you could buy in larger quantities, you can get a price break. Let's say you will pay 25% less if you buy double. You now would spend only 50% more than you have been spending, but have 2x the inventory. - .75 x 2,000,000 = $1.5 million

If you can gain enough new customers to double your sales by spending that extra $500,000 on advertising, you are still netting $1 per unit. You've doubled the size of your business, and still maintained the same profit margin. If the advertising works better than that, you could actually LOWER your prices and make MORE money, but still be spending more money to advertise.

[MikeHumphreys]

Originally Posted by Aronya

Not necessarily.

Let's say you sell 1,000,000 widgets per year.
They cost you $1 each. - $1 x 1,000,000 = $1 million
You sell them for $2 each. You net $1 million per year.

If you could buy in larger quantities, you can get a price break. Let's say you will pay 25% less if you buy double. You now would spend only 50% more than you have been spending, but have 2x the inventory. - .75 x 2,000,000 = $1.5 million

If you can gain enough new customers to double your sales by spending that extra $500,000 on advertising, you are still netting $1 per unit. You've doubled the size of your business, and still maintained the same profit margin. If the advertising works better than that, you could actually LOWER your prices and make MORE money, but still be spending more money to advertise.

It's traditional institutional marketing for a Walmart style business because they choose to market themselves on supposedly thin margins. If you throw a million dollars worth of ads out there, hopefully you make your million back or more.

Except that they aren't doing anything to track their advertising... at least from what I can see or hear. There's no special webpage... or extension number or phone number that indicates that they are tracking their efforts. I'm not a customer, nor would I ever want to be, so I'm basing my point on what is observable about their marketing.

Geico probably doesn't know if their last 100 customers came from radio, TV, internet, or all of the above. They probably don't know what media is converting best for them. Because if they did, they would can what wasn't working and increase their bottom line even more.

To paraphrase the late John Wannamaker, 50% of their advertising probably isn't working. But they don't know which 50%.

Instead they rely on the ad agency favorites of institutional advertising. It's not measurable, but hey, it wins awards. In contrast, if you make an offer (direct response style marketing), you can see an immediate increase in response. Sometimes as much as 300% just by making a solid offer.

And sorry, a free rate quote to me isn't a solid offer because everyone offers free rate quotes.

Take the money wasted on advertising that isn't working and put in the areas where you are seeing the conversions. That could easily double their business in less than a year. Or better yet, offer even cheaper rates -- because you aren't wasting money promoting a gecko and a cavemen trio that have zero to do with cheap car insurance -- and put your competitors out of business.

End of rant,

Mike

[Aronya]

Hi Mike,
I don't disagree with you about advertising without tracking. I was just pointing out that it is possible to be able to lower prices by advertising MORE, rather than less.

[firegold21]

Thanks for all the replies! I wasn't quite expecting this long a thread to result from my post. Guess that means I hit a nerve, so to speak, huh?

I don't know what exactly the answer to the complaint is, but I agree that long sales copy wouldn't be it. And I suspect video and/or audio might be better, but video on the iPhone-type devices currently can't be controlled in the way a lot of marketers like to: you can pause, rewind and skip ahead at your leisure. Same with the audio.

Now, *I* don't consider that a bad thing, but I know a few marketers say to make your video or audio able to be paused, but not to have a scrub bar of any type. No skipping ahead or going back allowed.

I was thinking something like Charles Trippy's sales page could work. IIRC, at the end of Next Internet Millionaire, he made a page for his video-making product that had a video and an extremely short letter below it. His page didn't outperform Jamie's, which had a more traditional format, but it did do very well.

Oh, and WordPro, I'm not sure we can all affect British accents well enough to pass the "is it fake?" test. Maybe we should start hiring voice-over actors who have British accents.

Joshua

[lisag]

Originally Posted by scottspfd82

I check most of my email from my Blackberry.

I agree, it's worth taking notice of, and most sales letters look like crap on my mobile browser.

This could be a nice opportunity for someone who's technically inclined to create a product that detects the browser and redirects the visitor to the appropriate sales letter.

That person isn't me, but if anyone knows of a solution I'd probably buy it, I think the amount of people who do check email on a phone is a large enough group to warrant a little bit of extra effort.

Then again, how often do you buy stuff from your phone? Especially downloadable content?

I never do... I have apps to shop on Ebay and stuff, but for shopping I still use the computer for the most part.

-Scott

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