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How to use Three Step Direct Response Marketing

by: Abe Cherian

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How to use Three Step Direct Response Marketing
By Abe Cherian
Copyright ? 2005

Three step marketing is a cost effective way for you to
sell your products or services. It's also a cost effective
way for you to test various offers. And surprisingly, few
marketers use this marketing technique.

With three step marketing, you'll be selling to people who
contacted you asking for information about your product or
service. And you'll be building your own mailing list from
people who are interested in your products or services.

Because you're building your own mailing list, you'll be
able to send several offers to the same prospects. Being
able to follow-up with the prospects who first asked for
information from you is the key to three step marketing.

Your objective with three step marketing is to locate new
prospects and then follow-up with an intensive direct mail
campaign.

Your sales literature doesn't have to be expensive or full
color, it simply has to look professional. Make sure you
have written something good, have checked it for proper
spelling and punctuation, and have provided a meaning
behind your products or services. This gives reason for the
customer to order your product.

If you have a computer, build a database of customer
inquiries so you can track who actually purchases, and then
send follow-up letters to those who don't.

Follow-up sales are where you are going to make most of
your income. Your ad draws the inquiries, the first order
establishes a good customer, and the rest of the orders are
the selling points.

Your second sales packet should be mailed a month after the
inquiry was received and another a month after that.

Testing is the only way to find out which plan works best
for you in getting orders. You'll need to find out which
sales package works best and how often to make mailings.

How elaborate you want to make your response pack depends
on how successful your product seems to be selling and how
much money you want to invest.

Always start small. A simple one page offer can work as
well as a conglomerate pretty letter. After you've built up
a few good selling products, you might print up a single
page brochure. Even at that, you don't have to go to color
unless your product warrants it.

You don't need an advertising agency to put together your
sales packet, but you can use one if you want. Be sure to
investigate the type of agency and what it can do for you
before hiring them.

Your lead generating letters should target the market most
likely to be interested in what you're eventually going to
offer them. Your letters must state a major benefit that
appeals to the readers' interests.

The main purpose of your sales message is to arouse
curiosity and to get the reader to move to the second step
of the process. Your sales letter must make the reader want
to know more. For best results, your letter should offer
something at no cost, but realize to keep your ROI at
interest.

Studies show that 80% of all people, that's 4 out of 5
people, who inquire about a product buy that product within
one year, but not from the company that made the original
contact.

The reason they don't buy from the company that made the
original contact is because the company did not follow-up.
Statistics show that you must make at least three contacts
with a prospect who expressed an interest in your product
or service before they'll buy from you. Very few marketers
realize this.

So the next few steps in the three step marketing process
are to send follow-up mailings to your prospects.
Repetitive follow-up is the difference between mediocre
success and huge success in marketing. If your initial
mailing is successful, you can realistically expect an
additional 50% in sales with your follow-up mailings.
That's an additional 50% of income you would not have if
you didn't follow-up.

Now you're ready to mail your direct mail response pack to
your prospects by first class mail. Your goal here is to
close the sale.

The prospects you send your first direct mail response pack
to are broken down into the following three steps:

1. A little bit interested. Gather leads through lead
generating direct response advertisements.

2. Very interested and ready to buy. Send follow-up mailing
to prospects. State a major benefit.

3. Very interested. but not ready to buy. Send follow-up
mailing to prospects. State same message with different
headline or call-to-action.

Three step marketing allows you to be in front of your
prospects when they move from the "not ready to buy"
category to the "ready to buy" category. It allows you to
build a relationship with your prospects and when they are
ready to buy, they'll buy from you.

The good news about three step marketing is you don't have
to create a completely different mailing package for each
additional step in the process.

Make minor changes to your initial mailing piece. One
technique that works well is to mail a different cover
letter along with a copy of your initial mailing piece. Try
to keep your cover letter to one page.

Another technique is to change the headline or the opening
paragraph of your original letter while reminding the
prospect that this is another notice.

How many times you should mail will depend on whether it's
no longer profitable. Always remember to include any back
end sales and the lifetime value of your customer. Your
largest expense was getting the prospect. Now is the time
to follow-up and grow your business sales.

About the author:
Abe Cherian's online automation system has helped
thousands of marketers online build, manage and grow
their business. Learn how it can benefit you too.

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