Direct Response Copywriting In The Internet Age
Have you read great books like The Boron Letters because somebody told you that those books were the key to learning direct response copywriting?
When you finished them, did you think, “That’s great and I get it, but who uses actual envelopes anymore? How does this work on the internet?”
If so, then you’re not alone.
About every ten minutes somebody pops on their favourite internet forum and asks about this question.
How does direct response marketing work in the digital world and the internet age?
In this article, I’ll tell you.
Decoding Direct Response Marketing For The Digital Age
The overall principles of direct marketing don’t change.
Gary Halbert would have found a list of targeted buyers, sent them a letter and relied on his copywriting skills within that letter to sell the readers on the product he was selling.
All the complexities of direct reponse marketing in the internet age are variations on this.
Instead of using a business directory to find a list of targeted buyers, you build one through social media, SEO or wherever else you find people. You then target them through an advert (the envelope) that leads to a landing page (the letter) and hope they respond (buy hitting the BUY NOW) button.
Fundamentally, nothing has changed. The internet allows for this process to be easier and yet more complex at the same time. Let’s take it a step further then.
Let’s talk about the Agora model, because it’s the mythical model that everyone talks about and most direct response marketing on the internet is based around this model.
The Mysterious Agora Model
A lot of people talk about “the Agora model” or “The Agora Method” as though it’s some super-complex thing that mere mortals and non-gurus of the direct marketing realm understand.
It’s not, but the Agora model is an effective way to transfer direct response marketing over to the internet age.
In fact, it’s so ubiquitous that you’re probably in about fifty Agora method marketing funnels and you don’t even know it.
The Agora Model in its simplest form is simply:
Get Someone To Put Their Details In On A Landing Page > Build A Relationship With Them Through Email > Give Them Free & Valuable Information > Upsell Them > Put Them On A Different List Of Buyers> Continue To Upsell Them.
That’s it, and it’s what has become – like I said – the most common way of doing business online.
This is because it works.
It doesn’t require complex tricks and gadgets. It requires new offers, new customers and constant relationship building.
This can be largely automated but you can do it with very little money.
Learn The Principles, Then The Platforms
To sum up the above; nothing has changed in terms of the principles.
Writing a sales letter is basically the same as it always has been, and the psychology of selling is no different.
That’s why you learn the principles of direct marketing first.
After that you then learn the techniques you’ll need to succeed: Landing page design, working out how to create compelling ads on the various platforms and how to string together an autoresponder.
If you do this in this exact order, you’ll find that the world is pretty uncompetitive. Old direct response guys aren’t so keen on learning the platforms and most online entrepreneurs don’t study the principles.
That’s all for now.