{"id":1931,"date":"2017-06-13T08:56:26","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T12:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/creativethirst.com\/blog\/?p=1931"},"modified":"2023-08-01T08:36:30","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T12:36:30","slug":"what-can-health-and-beauty-e-commerce-stores-learn-from-direct-response-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/creativethirst.com\/blog\/what-can-health-and-beauty-e-commerce-stores-learn-from-direct-response-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"What Can Health and Beauty E-Commerce Stores Learn From Direct Response Marketing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When people encounter a contrarian perspective they usually shut down from all learning and growth. Unfortunately, this also happens in\u00a0the world of marketing, and we can see this if we look no further that \u00a0the divide between direct response marketing and the traditional e-commerce chief marketing officer.<\/p>\n

Yet when looking at companies like Onnit, one of the most innovative brands in the health industry<\/a>, their Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Mike Spadier<\/em> said one of the key\u2019s to their success is inspiration and cross discipline learning.<\/p>\n

On the one side, the direct response marketer is focused squarely on driving trackable revenue and the e-commerce marketer is focused on engagement (with metrics like Click Through Rate, Views, Likes, Shares, Reach, etc.) in addition to\u00a0staying on brand, and metrics around\u00a0sales and revenue.<\/p>\n

It’s the idea of cross discipline learning where\u00a0traditional e-commerce marketers can learn a lot from the direct response marketing approach, despite\u00a0their different perspectives<\/p>\n

In this article, we\u2019ll look at the top 4 principals that an e-commerce store can learn and apply from direct response marketers, but there are many more.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get started with the first core principal\u2026<\/p>\n

Funnels vs. Shopping Carts<\/b><\/h2>\n

The traditional e-commerce website is a \u201cchoose your own adventure\u201d journey where the visitor can browse your store to find something to buy, which is the complete opposite of the first principal of direct response.<\/p>\n

In the direct response world this is done using funnels, as opposed to category pages and shopping carts.<\/p>\n

Unlike product category pages which let you shop around. Funnels target a single specific product landing page, with one call to action usually taking you to an order page and then adding on up-sells like \u2014 One Time Offers (OTO\u2019s) or One Click up-sells as stand alone pages after the buyer has entered their credit card information. In the e-commerce world, marketers use cross-sells which are by far less powerful because they don\u2019t leverage the psychology used in one click up-sells.<\/p>\n

But, it\u2019s not just the experience that is different from e-commerce, it\u2019s the economics as well.<\/p>\n

The economics of a funnel is designed to drive up the average order value on the day of the first transaction, whereas an e-commerce shopping experience is designed for exploration. This is likely due to marketers trying to mimic the experience of retail and not approaching the problem from a blank slate.<\/p>\n

A direct response funnel allows you to breakeven on your advertising spend on day one, which means your advertising pays for itself immediately. And as a result your advertising budget becomes infinite, which enables you to bring in thousands of buyers a day vs. hundreds.<\/p>\n

Premiums and Bonuses<\/b><\/h2>\n

If you can increase the value of the offer<\/a> in the mind of the prospect you can tip the scales towards an easier buying decision.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to\u2026<\/p>\n

Traditional e-commerce companies are missing a huge opportunity by just offering the product. It seems that the most creative they get is adding free shipping. But direct response, marketers seem to have way more creativity when it comes to the offer structure. They consistently use premiums, often times called bonuses, that are added to an offer to increase the perceived\u00a0 value.<\/p>\n

In the beauty market, traditional retail marketers add bonuses all the time yet it\u2019s a practice rarely seen in traditional e-commerce. You\u2019ll often see this for perfume where the retailer gives you a free gift with purchase.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But premiums don\u2019t have to be physical items, they can be in a digital format like a PDF report, or an MP3 audio interview or even access to group coaching or one-on-one consultation sessions. They key is that they add value to the core purchase.<\/p>\n

Long Form vs. Short Form<\/b><\/h2>\n

Traditional e-commerce product detail pages are all short pages, with the product and offer right up top above the fold. These pages usually focus only on the product benefits in a bulleted list format. Here\u2019s what you get and how much it costs, with a short product description and some customer reviews. This leads the visitor to make a more logic based purchase decision, forcing the prospect to shop based on price. It\u2019s no wonder then that so many online shoppers visit Amazon after they visit an e-commerce site.<\/p>\n

But in direct response marketing, the length of the page is not such a sacred cow, which leads to\u2026<\/p>\n

The opposite of a traditional e-commerce product detail page is a direct response sales letter. Which are usually really, really, really long as compared to e-commerce sales pages and don\u2019t reveal the product until half way or almost at the end of the page, which is roughly 5,000 pixels long or more in many cases.<\/p>\n

What do direct response marketers know that traditional e-commerce marketers don\u2019t?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s simple, people are not rational and they make all decisions, including buying decisions, based on emotion and then justify their decisions with logic.<\/p>\n

So, with a Long Form Sales Letter (LFSL) direct response marketers have a chance to build their case and explain the value. They lean on the problem rather than the solution. Which adds emotional pull towards buying the product as the solution vs. a take it or leave attitude of e-commerce sites.<\/p>\n

These types of direct response sales pages let you do that by creating a linear flow to the \u201cstory\u201d of why you should buy, keeping the prospects \u201chead down\u201d, to focus on the sale.<\/p>\n

In addition to allowing more space to build a cohesive case towards buying your product using evidence and proof, as well as story telling, emotion driven headlines, product demonstrations, and much, much more.<\/p>\n

Backend vs. Frontend<\/b><\/h2>\n

The direct response marketer would bring in a buyer on the front end with a single product, single offer, single funnel and then treat the e-commerce catalog of products as the backend.<\/p>\n

But, in order to understand that, you\u2019ll need to understand this next principal\u2026<\/p>\n

You need to first start with the difference between the backend and the frontend.<\/p>\n

Backend sales are those sales that are made to an existing customer. In other words the customer has already made an initial purchase from you, and is buying again.<\/p>\n

Front end sales are those sales that are made to a brand new customer, who has never bought from you before.<\/p>\n

In direct response marketing the economics are such that you\u2019re acquiring customers at zero cost, where as in e-commerce you\u2019re likely loosing money to get that same prospect to buy and then hoping to make it up on the backend.<\/p>\n

Where the direct marketer really shines above the traditional e-commerce marketing counterpart is in the backend email follow up sequence, which includes the frequency, sophistication and segmentation of that email sequence to get existing customers to buy again and again.<\/p>\n

Some of the tactics that direct response uses includes sending out different follow up emails to: those that didn\u2019t open an email, those that opened but didn\u2019t click, and those that clicked but didn\u2019t buy. In addition to segmenting the offers in the emails based on Recency, Frequency an Monetary (RFM) metrics from the buyers activity. This technique breaks down quantitatively which customers are the best ones by examining how recently a customer has purchased (recency), how often they purchase (frequency), and how much the customer spends (monetary). Then crafting very specific offers and funnels for those different types of customer segments.<\/p>\n

Are you beginning to see how traditional e-commerce marketers can take better advantage of direct response marketing techniques?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a Lot To\u00a0Learn\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

One fear many chief marketing officers have is about their brand, being tarnished but\u2026 If you take the best of e-commerce and the best of direct response, it is completely possible to optimize for a great brand experience and at the same time maximize sales using direct response strategies like\u2026<\/p>\n