[...]“Old School” Direct Marketing on the Internet – bly.com blog – bly.com direct marketing blog[...]…

We could learn a lot from you “dinosaurs”, in fact I have and continue to do so and I owe a lot of what I learned about copy writing from reading Mr. Bly’s books.

I do understand the importance of keywords for search engines but I also understand that it’s just as important for the copy to actually convert. If the spiders love it the human that’s directed to it must love it as well. How many times have you went to a search engine and found a site that had plenty of keyword density but the copy just didn’t speak to you? Too many times I’m sure.

To answer your question, “Is Direct Response Dead?” I would have to say NO WAY!

Look around, most people settle for a 2% conversion rate and say it’s okay because it’s average. I don’t want average, I want my copy to speak to the reader whether it’s a squeeze page, online video or a direct mail piece.

Direct response will never become extinct as long as people want to convert more.

Unfortunately, that’s what the majority of them are looking for right now. They give you a phrase or two, though I’ve had as many as 40 for one article, and the keyword density and that’s all they’re interested in. I do have clients who care about more than that, and those are the ones worth sticking in the game for. I have some that want both keywords and substance and even a few that don’t care about keywords. But, those are extremely hard to find online.

the internet approach of giving it all away and then somehow sometime making some money later on is like flipping burgers after shipping the manufacturing jobs somewhere else

you can make a little money for a while with the free internet model, but when all the folks whose manufacturing jobs got shipped to india are broke then the burger flippers wont be needed either

love of money is the root of all evil but there is nothing evil about producing and selling products that help society. how people are treated and how the money is made can be evil but total rebellion against making money at all is silly.

Thanks for touching upon a HUGE pet peeve of mine!

I don’t know how many “SEO copywriters” I’ve talked with who believe that it’s all about shoving keyphrases into copy. They don’t know how to write a compelling headline. They don’t think in terms of “benefit statements.” Heck, many folks don’t even know what direct response writing *is.* Instead, these writers are repeating the same words over and over to gain (or game) keyphrase relevancy.

What’s worse is that clients are paying top dollar for this content thinking that SEO copywriting is supposed to sound like a laundry list of keyphrases.

It drives me nuts.

Thanks for your email earlier today and letting me post my own rant…

http://www.seocopywriting.com/commentary/why-direct-reponse-writing-skills-are-so-damn-important/

Cheers!
Heather

What’s the key to relevancy? Usually it’s the offers/messaging you make/use.

My experience in not either/or, it’s using the right channel with the right message and usually involves adjusting such to each segment based on THEIR channel preference, not mine as a marketer.

Both old and new need to apply correct testing — sadly that’s still done infrequently.