It’s Monday — that means it’s time to open up the mailbox and answer YOUR questions!
Sometimes trying to save time or a dime can be the biggest mistake…
Today’s Mailbox Monday is a familiar conundrum in businesses — especially those with a big catalog of products to sell.
And, I think it’s one of those places where logic totally screws us up. Because what we think should logically be right ends up being wrong.
… Proving once again that should is a big enemy of marketing response!
You can either pay attention to reality in front of you, let the market tell you what it does respond to, and enjoy maximum success… Or you can stubbornly insist always that things should be a certain way, stick to your guns, and experience the consistent and frustrating under-performance of your marketing as a result.
And, I speak from stubborn experience…
Here’s today’s Mailbox Monday question…
—
Roy,
Hoping for your perspective here.
Normally I do sales copy for a very specific product.
Now a new customer (who is a friend and begs me to help him) wants me to write “copy” for his website, which is an umbrella site for his “equipment for big events” business (big amplifiers, generators, etc etc).
I told him that in an ideal world, I’d create sales copy for each of his products (each brings a good amount of traffic from Adwords) and send very specific paid traffic to it. But that would take me a year maybe, considering all his different products.
What do you suggest?
Have you had success with a more “shotgun approach”? In my mind that is very anti Direct Response, but Time forces us to work that way.
Your thoughts much appreciated,
R.
—
Oh my, oh my! The first mistake (which also led me down this path) is the “friends and family” route…
It’s far easier to end up screwing up a friends and family project or business opportunity than it is to get it right.
Because when friends or family is involved, there’s an extra layer to the relationship that can often stop you from speaking your entire truth.
Sounds like what’s happening here.
And, what has happened to me in a situation like this.
You think you’re doing them a favor. You think you’re going to bring your skills to bear, to get them great results.
But then, there’s a disagreement. (If you’re a direct response marketer, it’s most often about applying proven principles and strategies of direct response that are sometimes counterintuitive.)
In a pure client situation, you’d easily tell them, “No, we should do it this way, or you should probably find someone else.” But when there’s friends and family involved, you end up getting deep, and then just wanting to finish the project (by their standards) and keep the relationship intact (regardless of the eventual success or failure to get the result).
In short, you’re much better off not starting a project like this in the first place, than any other option. That said, let’s assume you’re moving forward…
What’s the best approach to selling a catalog of products?
Now let me preface this by saying that even today, there are around 10 billion catalogs being mailed every year. After dipping in the mid- to late-2000s, catalog volume went back up in the 2010s. And today, many retailers are using catalogs to drive online purchases.
Catalogs work. At least, to a degree.
Especially around the holiday time, people do really engage with the catalog, as a print product.
But… What does that mean online? And what does that mean with this project in question?
Well, let’s dive in a little deeper here.
Because Amazon.com, the world’s largest e-commerce site, is also a catalog site. They’re the Walmart of the internet, where you can show up and get anything, at a relatively low price.
In short, if you look around, it would seem that it really pays to put up a site with a ton of products, and reap the profits.
But there are counterexamples…
A couple years back, I was asked to help put up a retail site for a family member.
It was a single product category. But he had a TON of selection within the category.
We created a catalog site. We spent a very little amount of time on each product. And instead looked to maximize the boilerplate copy across the entire website.
In the interest of being able to list 100s of products, that’s the decision we made.
We did sell a little bit. But the site never took off.
Whereas if we were to go in and create a site for each individual product, and perhaps link each together, we could easily have had one success after another.
This isn’t the exact product category, but imagine this: Imagine you put up a site that’s all about toy vehicles.
People come to the site who might be interested in toy vehicles. But then they have to browse throughout the site to find what they want. They click around, but they soon get lost with all the options, and don’t make a decision.
Or, let’s say you pick a single category, like slot cars. You create a site dedicated to slot cars. You make it easy to buy stock car tracks, individual stock cars, and stock car sets. This narrow focus lets you go big on that one area. And once you’ve built that site selling slot cars, you can build another that’s for Pinewood Derby cars. And another that’s for toy trains. And another that’s for model rockets. And so on.
With each site — and they could be specific sections of the same site — you’re giving people the option to show up and say, “This is exactly what I’m looking for.”
Just like if you search for “STEM toys” in Google, you could easily end up in the Amazon STEM toys department and suddenly it feels like you’re on a site dedicated to bringing you the best STEM toys.
You’re better off focusing on one single customer experience, and perfecting that, than trying to be “everything to everybody…”
Another example, from someone you’ll recognize…
Me.
When I sell BTMSinsiders through Breakthrough Marketing Secrets, as well as through paid ads, I can make it work financially to sell the subscription as a whole.
At least, in some cases.
The BTMSinsiders All-Access Pass is a pretty compelling offer, and so — especially for people that know, like, and trust me already — I can occasionally link to it and get some sales.
And logically, because that explains how much you get as part of the BTMSinsiders membership, that should be what sells the most.
Yet, it doesn’t.
It’s far easier to sell “get this one specific thing you’re interested in as part of your membership,” and then mention, “oh by the way, you’ll also get access to everything else.”
It sells far better by focusing on the one narrow thing, than by focusing on the wide thing. Even though it would seem like the perceived value would be higher by focusing on the subscription.
I had the same experience the first time I dove into a Netflix subscription…
This was back in the DVD days.
I was in college, in a Film History class. I had an assignment to write an essay about F.W. Murnau, the German silent film director who created our modern image of vampires in film.
I was supposed to watch three of his films, and write my report on them.
I called around to the local video stores. No luck. Nobody had three — in fact, nobody even had one.
But I’d heard of this DVD by mail business called Netflix, and so I logged onto their site.
It was specifically that they had the ONE (or actually, THREE) things I needed that caused me to take action and sign up.
That was my first good experience. And now my lifetime value with them is probably well over $1,000, at under $10 per month.
People buy something specific, NOT something general…
Ditching subscriptions and going back to the catalog examples…
I recall an old Gary Halbert story from when he was selling family crests by mail.
He’d built this big business selling prints of individual family crest prints.
Then, looking to sell more things, he created a catalog of dozens of individual products, all customizable to your family crest.
He mailed the catalogs out, and couldn’t even get them to bring back break-even to his buyers list.
So he did an analysis, and found the top products in the catalog. Turned out there were three. So he created a much smaller brochure featuring those three products. Upon testing, he barely broke even.
Then, he decided to focus on just the top product. He wrote a letter promoting that product, and sent it to his buyers, and…
He made millions!
Turns out it was far more profitable to focus on just one known popular product than to try to give people lots of options in a catalog format.
If I were in your shoes, R., I’d do something similar.
Assuming I ended up doing a project with my friend, I’d focus there. I’d focus on the one product that had been proven to be most popular, or part of the most orders.
I’d put a ton of effort into maximizing that one single thing.
Then, I’d move through the catalog, from product to product to product…
But only AFTER I’d made the first highly successful.
There’s no rule that says if you get the idea to go into a catalog business (or any other type of business) that you’ll be most successful continuing to focus there.
You could easily find that a handful of products each deserve their own “funnel” and optimized customer experience.
Uno mas…
Ever heard of Procter & Gamble?
They’ve been around 180 years. Today, they’re one of the biggest direct marketing companies in the world, although their direct marketing looks a little different than the kind I do — and they have a mix of brand/image advertising mixed in, too.
In 2016, they did over $65 billion in revenue.
And although you’re probably familiar with the parent company name, you’re likely way more familiar with each brand.
A tiny sampling includes Always, Bounty, Braun, Charmin, Crest, Dawn, Downy, Febreeze, Gillette, Luvs, Olay, Old Spice, Oral-B, Pampers, Pantene, Swiffer, Tampax, Tide, and Vicks.
As of 2015, they had 21 separate brands with over $1 billion in revenue.
Each is advertised separately. Each brand and customer experience is built by a separate team, in a separate silo.
They all contribute to the parent company’s success. And each gets resources from the parent company.
But, for example, when you go looking for more information on Tide, you’ll land on a site that’s all about Tide, and only spends a tiny sliver of real estate to mention other P&G brands.
If I were you, I’d look to all these examples…
While it’s important to think about the total site, that’s a very INTERNAL perspective.
Every customer shows up on one page at a time, and is looking for a specific solution.
The better you can serve ONE customer, the better you’ll serve ALL. And the more success you’ll have.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
