It’san established fact that deadlines in your direct mail piece will result in higher response rates, but does a deadline work for Internet marketing?
Test: A recent study sought to examine Internet response rates for a 2-day seminar. There was a $100 discount on the registration fee if the prospect signed up before the January 31 cutoff date.
The offer was promoted using proper direct response web rules the offer was near the bottom of the page, and had limited navigation options.
In addition, an email was sent out on the morning of January 31 the day the offer expired to see how that affected response.
How do think the deadline affected the flow of sales?
Results: The answer may astound you. Sales increased by an average by nearly 1,000% during the three days before the deadline!
- January 8 through 28 there were 33 sign ups for the seminar. An average of 1.57 sales per day
- January 29 through 31 there were 37 sign-ups for an average of 12.33 sales per day
A sense of urgency in your Internet offers can be a powerful conversion weapon. One of the reasons eBay is so phenomenally successful is that every single item has a built-in timer.
Driving sales
The fear of losing out on an item drives each and every sale.You can use this kind of sales tactic as well.
One online retailer of computer parts created a lowest Price Survey email for popular items. Each week they sent an email that listed the 10 most-popular computer parts of the day and the lowest price on the Internet for each...even if the lowest price wasn’t always theirs (90% of the time it was).
But here is the key: At the top of the page was a line like as of 6:04a.m., these are the best prices on the web.
The headline never told prospects they had to buy or else. What it did was subtly inject the concept of time and the possibility that these prices could change. It was incredibly successful for the retailer. In the 48 hours after the email was sent, they saw a 10% spike in sales.
Deadlines can be just as effective online as offline. Used properly, deadlines and limited supplies can boost your response rates 10% to 25%.
Are you looking to effectively use a deadline in your offer? Let me know. Email me at inquire@cdmginc.com and we can discuss the best ways to work a deadline into your offer.
