Have you ever received a marketer’s email saying that the response from their previous promotion was 70%? Or when they email and say: “Hey, have you ever seen a 95.453% converting web copy, well here it is…”

You know, that really pisses me off. I mean, c’mon…

This kind of promotion can only be generated from a super targeted, small mailing list. There’s simply no way one can get a response even close to that from a PPC campaign, or SEO rankings. So when they emphasize their unbelievably successful “web copy”, which in their opinion is responsible for such success, it makes me mad…

Gee, I could meet a dozen close friends and tell them about the opportunity, then send them an email or call them to go and buy my stuff. Walla, 100% CR! But try to get such a response from an Adwords campaign these days…

What I mean is that newbie marketers might fall for that and start thinking that great web copy is all they need. Don’t get me wrong, copywriting is very important, even one of the most important skills in online marketing. But copywriting alone, won’t help you succeed. It’s not the web copy, it’s the right market.

You may have the best directory building software in the world, but if you advertise to bad credit mortgage market, you’ll get no sales. But if you have a product that’s really not the best in the market, actually one of the worst. Yet, you manage to send a promotion to the specific target market, you’ll get sales. Maybe many refunds too, but you’ll get some sales. That’s the whole point here. Sending a promo to the most specific target market is mostly responsible for the success of your ad, and not the copywriting. Yep, you may argue with me, but that’s what I think it is…

The broader that market, the lower the response. So don’t blindly fall for any copywriters’ claims about extremely high conversions… If their ad was sent to a broader audience, probably they’d lose 10 times the response. On the other hand, if your current web copy produces 0.5% CR, sent to the right market, it may get you 7% or 10%.

The point is that email marketing produces the best response rates. Nothing can beat that. People who get the message already trust and love the owner, so they’ll buy. They might even buy, because it’s their buddy sending them a product and not a stranger. PPC or SEO can’t even compare to that.

So when measuring your web copy statistics, don’t be disappointed when your CR is only 1% or 2% when others are screaming about 50% to 90% conversion. It’s the right market and the volumes you’re trying to reach and not the copywriting.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 at 10:15 am and is filed under Website Copywriting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.