My colleague Denny Hatch is one of the most respected of the “old school” direct marketing copywriters and publishers operating today.

He says the reason so many Internet marketers get it wrong is that they fail to apply DM selling techniques online.

“One reason for the dot.com bust was inexperience,” Denny writes. “Quite simply, many of the hotshot twenty-something marketers did not have a solid grounding in the basics of direct marketing. They did not know how to make an offer, how to ask for an order, and make it easy to order.”

Yet I increasingly hear new media gurus saying that old-school direct marketing copy is the WRONG way to go on the Internet — that it’s all about conversation, free content, social networking, and making a connection.

Many new media marketers have posted comments on this blog saying direct marketing copy is irrelevant and will soon disappear.

So what do you think?

Are Denny and I dinosaurs, writing our direct response copy, doomed to extinction? (The money we both make from our copy would seem to indicate not.)

Or is he right, and is knowing how to sell the missing ingredient that stops so many Internet marketers from converting their brilliant content and concepts into cash?

What say you, Dear Reader?

It seems to me that large corporations have a decided edge in optimizing their Web sites for search engines over small business in general and solo practitioners in particular.

Reason: SEO is a complicated process with many different time-consuming and labor-intensive tasks, from keyword research to optimizing press releases.

A bigger company can afford to dedicate one or more employees full-time to each of these major tasks. For instance, I know a company with a full-time staff person who does nothing but seek incoming links, one of the steps in SEO.

By comparison, if you are a solo entrepreneur or an understaffed SOHO, no one in your office may be able to spare more than a few MINUTES each week securing incoming links to your Web site.

Is there any way a solo or SOHO entrepreneur can compete with medium or large companies in the SEO game … any tricks or shortcuts you know to level the playing field?

“Dad,” my oldest son Alex called from our living room, where we keep one of our family PCs at home. “You’re on YouTube!”

And he’s right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLnD6YyyVD4

I didn’t know it, but a conference promoter put video of my speaking at his Internet marketing event on You Tube.

My questions is: does this benefit me in any way? How can I measure it?

In my old age, I am being dragged kicking and screamining into the brave new world of Web 2.0 — and I have barely begun to master Web 1.0!

Do YOU market with social media? Does it work? How do you know?

According to an article in Internet Marketing Report (5/25/07), 52% of U.S. adults never read a blog, and 16% don’t even know what a blog is.

The article concludes that investing a lot of your marketing budget in blogging “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

Do you agree with that conclusion? Disagree? Why?

BB, an old ad agency veteran whom I always liked and respected, resurfaced in my life via e-mail … but not in a pleasant way.

He starts off nicely enough, asking if I remember him and giving me a nice compliment about my being a smart guy.

But then, he says: “But I get annoyed at the get-rich-quick schemes you lend your name to on the Internet” — referring to my endorsement of Matt Feury’s upcoming seminar on e-mail copywriting.

“It is really beyond the pale. There most be a more appropriate way to earn a commission. Jeez…”

Here’s just a partial list of my problems with BB’e e-mail:

First, Matt Feury is the real deal. The guy spends 15 minutes typing out a personal e-mail, broadcasts it to his list with a mouse click, and makes about $10,000 a day.

He is not a “hustle.” He knows how to make money online, and more important, can teach us how to do so.

Second, BB’s e-mail implies that all Internet marketing is sleazy.

Hey, BB, you were a Madison Avenue ad guy. Who are you to talk about sleazy?

Third, BB also implies that I am a low-life by selling information online.

Is there something inherently wrong or low-class about marketing information online?

Tell that to the New York Times … the Wall Street Journal … Harvard Business School Publishing … Better Homes & Gardens … and thousands of other publishers, small and large, who make great profits selling useful content their buyers love online!

What perhaps is more of a hustle, BB, is trying to convince sucker clients that pouring millions into big print and TV ad campaigns, that can’t be measured and win awards for creativity but not sales, is a smart way to invest one’s money.

You’ve been doing that for years — after all, you’re a smart guy too.

Right, old friend?

But I’m really not angry at BB. Just his ignorance and misconceptions, which so many people share.

If I saw him again, the first beer would be on me — with a warm handshake and a smile….

A couple of months ago, I joined the opt-in e-list of a semi-obscure entertainer whose CDs I enjoy.

By mid-afternoon of that day, I had received three e-mail marketing messages from him.

When a fourth arrived around 5pm, I hollered “enough!” — and unsubscribed from his list.

That got me thinking about the question: how much e-mail is too much?

Say you subscribe to a company’s monthly e-newsletter.

In addition to that monthly e-letter, will you tolerate additional e-mail messages from them?

If so, how many?

One a week … one a day … somewhere in between?

How much e-mail is too much?

In the 1960s, Mad Magazine spokesperson Alfred E. Neumann made famous the saying: “What, me worry?”

In the 21st century, one of the things e-marketers worry about is e-mail deliverability.

Some e-mail marketers devote large amounts of time, attention, and money to making sure there e-mail marketing messages are not blocked by spam filters and other mechanisms interfering with deliverability.

Their reasoning is that if an e-mail isn’t delivered, it doesn’t get opened, read, or responded to.

But some of the e-mails they product are so sterile … and look so odd (e.g., “f-r-e-e instead of “free”) … they have (to me) little impact.

On the other hand, some e-mail marketers just write the strongest copy possible — as if they are saying “spam filters be damned!”

Which school are you in?

Do you worry about spam filters and content filters when composing e-mail marketing messages?

Or do you ignore all the “rules” of e-mail deliverability and still get great click through rates and sales?

Is HTML e-mail on its way out?

Michael Della Penna, chief marketing officer of Epsilon Interactive, seems to think we may be headed that way.

In an interview with Direct magazine (10/15/06, p. 9), Penna said that retailers who still use all-HTML e-mail are in for a “horrendous” online holiday shopping season.

He cites a study by his firm showing that for 65% of Internet users, images are suppressed in the e-mail they receive, and so they can’t see the graphics.

As a marketer, what works best for you — text or HTML e-mails?

As a consumer, which would you rather receive … and why?