Should my offline flyer point to an online salesletter or opt-in page?

[justbill]

Hi

Sorry if this is bad form to be new to a forum and then bombard it with lots of requests for advice. I hope you will forgive me if it is as I don't mean to offend.

I am very excited about bringing my offline business online but really could do with some advice.

I am going to have a flyer delivered to my target audience directing them to my web site but I am not sure what I should direct them to.

Would it be better to point them to a main page that tells them more about my service and sell to them from there

.......or should I provide an incentive for them to give me their email address? I could then keep in touch with them and have more attempts at selling to them at a later date.

Is this something that anybody else does? if so I would value your opinon.

Thank you so much
Bill

[phil.wheatley]

I would say that it would be easier to get them to opt into a list, then you have more chance of selling to them in the future, and then make repeat offers. If you just send them straight to a salesletter from a leaflet, Im not sure how well that would take off?? Are you delivering them to a very targetted audience or just to random people? If it's not targetted then it can be quite a waste of money (in my experience anyway). Once I stood on a street corner and gave out 200 fliers, how many people visited my site from that?????/ ZERO, not a single person.

[Chris Lockwood]

It depends on what you want them to do. Do you want them to go to your website and buy? Or do you want them to call or contact you some other way (as would make sense if you're selling consulting)? It's not clear what you're selling.

Where are the flyers being distributed? Is it some targeted thing, or are we talking windshields?

[JJOrana]

Though I have not done this personally, I'm studying this option too.

It appears that the best way to do it is, the flyer is the sales letter and point them to your site for opt-in.

Don't forget that your domain name should be easier to remember and have it relevant to your customer.

[justbill]

Hi

Thanks for your tip.

I have a tight niche audience for my main business and I am very confident that they would visit my site on receipt of the flyer as it is very specific to their business.

However, I was thinking about promoting another service (as a secondary business) as well which was more generic and not as easy to target. However your comments have given me something to think about especially as you did not get any visitors to the site.

That is why for this group I was considering giving them an incentive to visit the site in exchange for thier email address.

I'm not sure what to do now.

Thanks again

Bill

[justbill]

Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood

It depends on what you want them to do. Do you want them to go to your website and buy? Or do you want them to call or contact you some other way (as would make sense if you're selling consulting)? It's not clear what you're selling.

Where are the flyers being distributed? Is it some targeted thing, or are we talking windshields?

Hi Chris

Thanks for taking the time to reply and sorry if my message was too vague.

My main business targets a very specific industry niche. I will be sending a flyer direct to these businesses.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I would expect them to view my site because it is specific to their business.

The aim is to get them to subscribe to a subscription based newsletter (I currently have approx 700 subscribers to the offline newsletter @ £9.99 so know that there is interest out there).

The other business I was going to enter into was more generic and less targetted (diet product for example).

My aim was to do a leaflet drop through 1000 householders letterboxes each day.

It is because this is a less targetted group that I considered the opt-in page with incentive.

However, my concern is the newsletter to my industry niche.

Thanks for the replies.

Bill

[justbill]

Originally Posted by JJOrana

Though I have not done this personally, I'm studying this option too.

It appears that the best way to do it is, the flyer is the sales letter and point them to your site for opt-in.

Don't forget that your domain name should be easier to remember and have it relevant to your customer.

Hi

Good point. I have my catchy, specific domain names already registered. People will be in no doubt what to expect when they visit the sites

Bill

[justbill]

David

Thank you very much for bringing that to my attention.

It is extremely useful and interesting.

Thanks again

Bill

[justbill]

Sorry, one more question:

If I do go down the opt-in route is there a way that I can send them to a sales page once they have submitted their email address to me or is this not possible?

Thanks

Bill

[AndrewCavanagh]

IF your prospects will go from a flyer to a website then yes you could send them to an optin page (quite frankly I don't know how you could know they will do this until you've tested it).

You want to give them a huge incentive to sign up and then continue to get your emails.

So a gift they get for signing up and a series of emails with tips and secrets...something along those lines...all highly targeted.

After someone signs up for your list you can:

# 1: Immediately and automatically redirect them to a sales page.

# 2: Immediately redirect them to a sales page when they confirm their email address.

# 3: Have a sales page under the download link for whatever gift you give them for signing up.

# 4: Send them an email automatically in the sequence of emails you send out encouraging them to click through to a sales page.


Or any combination of those.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[justbill]

Originally Posted by AndrewCavanagh

IF your prospects will go from a flyer to a website then yes you could send them to an optin page (quite frankly I don't know how you could know they will do this until you've tested it).

You want to give them a huge incentive to sign up and then continue to get your emails.

So a gift they get for signing up and a series of emails with tips and secrets...something along those lines...all highly targeted.

After someone signs up for your list you can:

# 1: Immediately and automatically redirect them to a sales page.

# 2: Immediately redirect them to a sales page when they confirm their email address.

# 3: Have a sales page under the download link for whatever gift you give them for signing up.

# 4: Send them an email automatically in the sequence of emails you send out encouraging them to click through to a sales page.


Or any combination of those.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Hi Andrew

Thank you very much for your detailed response. I appreciate your advice very much.

Regarding your point about being so sure that they will go to the web site from myflyer, you are right, I can't really know this until I have tested it.

However my niche is very specific and they are interested in any information regarding their industry (I know this due to the success of my offline newsletter which I am currently trying to expand).

This is new territory for me however, as I normally sell from a hard copy sales letter via snail mail and have not sold online. Hopefully I can do it and it worth a test.

Thanks again

Bill