Direct Response Marketing Rule Number Three!

by Bill Parlaman
Filed under Bill's Blog

Direct Response Marketing Rule number three is very important and applies to your offline marketing as well as your online marketing like your website design and your business blog.

As a matter of fact you must apply all these principles not only to your offline marketing campaigns but your website design as well.

So rule number three of Direct Response Marketing is : You Must Give Your Client And Prospect Clear Instructions On What You Want Them To Do!

You see, you need to tell people exactly what it is you want them to do and be crystal clear about this.

Here’s the problem, if someone lands on your website and they become confused or cant figure out what you want them to do next, then your prospect is likely to leave your website–that’s the bad news…

Now the the good news is most people follow directions well. So you can cut through all the confusion ahead of time by being perfectly clear as to what you want your prospects to do when they land on your website.

You can do this in several different ways either through your sales copy, an audio recording or the use of video on your site. I’d suggest using all three just to make sure there is absolutely no confusion as to what response your prospect should take when landing on your website.

For example, you could have a welcome video on the top of your website acting as kind of a tour guide when your prospect lands on your website. Under your video you can have a few words written out explaining exactly what the video is all about and how to play the video. That’s right, you’ll want to tell your prospect to push play in order to watch the video. Tell them how long the video is and what you want them to do or what will happen when the video ends.

Make sure you don’t forget to do this on your opt-in forms as well. Make it very clear to your prospect you want them to fill in their name and email address and then click the submit button. You’ll also want to change the text on your submit button to read something like ” Yes Bill, Sign Me Up For My Radical Marketing Daily Ezine Course.”

In fact, adding instructions to your submit button has showed to substantially increase your opt-in response!

Another tip you’ll want to try and I learned this one from the late great Gary Halbert– You’ll want to make sure that you tell your prospect what will happen after they take the action you ask of them.

You see, people are afraid of the unknown. You’ll actually want to take your prospect by the hand showing them and telling them exactly what’s going to happen next. In essence you’re actually removing the fear and guiding your prospect through the selling cycle.

Same goes for your offline campaigns. When you ask your prospect to call a phone number or visit a website tell them what’s going to happen step by step. You’ll want to tell them exactly what’s going to happen when they call the number, how to leave their information and what to expect after they hang up.

So now you know rule number three of direct response marketing. This rule seems kind of simple but will really pay for itself in no time. Don’t take any chances thinking your prospect will figure stuff out on their own. The good news is most of your prospects will appreciate the extra attention and directions.