Direct Response Marketing: Big Profits for Your Small Business

There's a lot of mystery and nonsense written and spoken about direct response marketing, typically both those who seek to grow rich telling you the secrets of how to do it.

But it's all very simple and straightforward.

Please, before you do anything else, understand your marketing has only one reason (and one reason only) for existing: to make you money. It's not there to promote "brand awareness" or "increase market share" or win awards and accolades from the marketing industry. Not one of these is important - and even if you think they are, then they must still take a back seat to making money because money is what makes everything else possible.

This is not selfish or greedy: it makes sense and is the only way you're going to stay in business. Even if you want to give all your profits away and do good in the world, the only way you're going to make them is with effective direct response marketing.

With that all said, let's see what you absolutely must include in every marketing piece you create. It MUST have:

1. A headline. Your headling is what stops your prospect in his or her tracks and grabs his or her attention... but only for a fleeting instant. This is no mean feat and is NOT optional.

2. Engaging body copy. Once you've got their attention, you've got to keep 'em reading. Remember: copy can't be too long... it can only ever be too boring.

3. An offer. This is the biggie, the one thing almost all business owners fail to include in their direct response marketing pieces. See, it's not enough to say, "oh, feel free to drop by and have a look around". Because they won't. Most people are too lazy to bother thinking about what they want to buy or even if they want to buy. So you must offer them something concrete, specific, and easy to understand.

4. A way to respond. I've even seen a full postcard mailing sent out with absolutely no way to respond to them included, not a thing. No phone, no email, no website, no address... not even a company name. Hilarious.

5. A reason to respond and SOON. Here's another thing business owners miss all the time. It's called "scarcity", and while it goes against the common wisdom to limit access to products, it actually encourages them to act right away rather than "later" (which is just another way of saying, "never").

Without all of these 5 things, whatever else your marketing piece might be, it's NOT a direct response marketing piece.

Which is another way of saying it's not going to be anywhere near as effective as it could be if you paid a little more attention to what you are doing!


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