Why Not 'Direct Response Marketing'?
Hello Folks
This thread, I predict, will either fall flat on its face or get some really great discussions going, but probably nothing much in between.
We call this business we're in Internet Marketing or IM for short. I think Direct Response Marketing is a better way to describe what we do (and, no, here I'm not threatening to shorten it to DRM!).
Because when you think about it, except for membership sites and eBay, hardly anybody really markets on the Internet, it's just a convenient place to take orders and sometimes leave messages for some of our customers.
Perhaps if you have an humungous list and you launch products using email messages to all - and never, ever send out a snail mail letter, you can describe yourself as an IM; otherwise, I don't think so (and how did you build the list in the first place, really?).
If you built your list using classified ads in newspapers and magazines, or if you rented mailing lists you wouldn't describe yourself as a classified ad marketer or a mailing list marketer, would you?
Amazon is a huge success on the Internet but some of you may remember way back in the dim and distant past - the mid-'90s - when Amazon was losing money hand over fist and you saw their ads regularly on television. No Internet marketing there.
Clearly re-naming something doesn't change the reality, but re-naming something can, in fact, shift our perspective in useful ways.
This change in perspective may be particularly helpful for newbies. When we call ourselves IMs the emphasis for these folks too often seems to be about domain names, home pages, squeeze pages, etc, when it should be on niches, markets, products, lists, etc. A reading from any sample of Forum posts from newbies will support this.
Good market research and product design are where it starts, not with a clever domain name and a spectacular web page. Yes, a good domain name is helpful and excellent copy is crucial, but this is not where the process should begin.
Thanks for listening.
All the best.
Warmest regards
Bill
This thread, I predict, will either fall flat on its face or get some really great discussions going, but probably nothing much in between.
We call this business we're in Internet Marketing or IM for short. I think Direct Response Marketing is a better way to describe what we do (and, no, here I'm not threatening to shorten it to DRM!).
Because when you think about it, except for membership sites and eBay, hardly anybody really markets on the Internet, it's just a convenient place to take orders and sometimes leave messages for some of our customers.
Perhaps if you have an humungous list and you launch products using email messages to all - and never, ever send out a snail mail letter, you can describe yourself as an IM; otherwise, I don't think so (and how did you build the list in the first place, really?).
If you built your list using classified ads in newspapers and magazines, or if you rented mailing lists you wouldn't describe yourself as a classified ad marketer or a mailing list marketer, would you?
Amazon is a huge success on the Internet but some of you may remember way back in the dim and distant past - the mid-'90s - when Amazon was losing money hand over fist and you saw their ads regularly on television. No Internet marketing there.
Clearly re-naming something doesn't change the reality, but re-naming something can, in fact, shift our perspective in useful ways.
This change in perspective may be particularly helpful for newbies. When we call ourselves IMs the emphasis for these folks too often seems to be about domain names, home pages, squeeze pages, etc, when it should be on niches, markets, products, lists, etc. A reading from any sample of Forum posts from newbies will support this.
Good market research and product design are where it starts, not with a clever domain name and a spectacular web page. Yes, a good domain name is helpful and excellent copy is crucial, but this is not where the process should begin.
Thanks for listening.
All the best.
Warmest regards
Bill
Keep the faith and never give up!