DM and the internet

in my experience, the carry over is pretty great. Internet people tend to like shorter copy ( although this is debatable) while yu can really flex ur copy skills on a traditional sales piece.

If needed u could use the same copy for both mediums

Jonathan

You can use the same copy, but people are a bit more cynical and need more proof. Lots of quality photos and quality artwork help lift the copy and create credibility.

It has to be tailored to the Internet audience. Varies from situation to situation.

First point: A successful direct mail piece will likely (but not definitely) transfer pretty well to the internet.

The principles are the same, but there are a few differences...

1) You can use (and should use) more white space on the internet. In direct mail, or space ads, the more space you take, the more cash you pay.

On the 'net it doesn't cost anything to add more, so you'll see a lot of one-sentence paragraphs in the best promos.

2) Magalog-style writing is more common offline, because every page almost has to be a self-contained ad. Writing and formatting has to be very carefully placed to ensure people will keep reading over the page. Online, you just have people scrolling, so you don't need to worry about "page breaks" as much.

3) This is debated, but IMHO the internet is a more visual-heavy medium. Maybe people expect it because we don't pay for colors (unlike the print world where color is expensive.) That means your pages need to be visually stimulating. MindValley has some great examples of this kind of stuff.

4) Generally you'll find different demographics prefer internet or DM (usually the older, more conservative crowd still prefer mail.) Having said that, the gap is closing pretty quick, and in some markets doesn't exist at all.

5) Benefit? Not everyone uses the internet to search/buy things. But everyone has a mailbox. My mum and dad would both respond much better to a postcard or flyer than an internet sales piece, but I'm the opposite.

-Daniel

Me too. Another thing to remember is MMO has a lot of subsets, so it depends on your particular market. The fancy cars etc is targeting the "lazy, greedy, completely new" subset.

There's an old saying that you can't scam an honest person. I'm not sure I completely aree with that (look at people who are hugely generous), but it rings true to a point in this market. Most people stop chasing it after they see it once or twice and know better. But some people will eat that stuff up all day long.

Food for thought.

-Daniel

In the early days of Internet marketing some of those marketers
simply copied the DM letter onto the internet and turned the product
into a digital product and it did work and still does. In fact, the
online sales letter is made to look as close as possible to a PRINT
letter as possible (background, signature etc.).

I wouldn't repeat Daniel's point because he basically nailed it,
but you do have a lot more freedom online than you do with
paper--clickable links, audio-visual elements etc.

-Ray Edwards