Creating web content that supports direct mail

2nd September 2009 | Posted in Web content

When you invite your potential customer to visit your web site for further information, what are you actually offering as content on your site?

Are you providing a special landing page, or even a micro site, that is dedicated to drawing the customer further along the purchasing process? Are you truly offering “more information”?

To my mind, there can be nothing more irritating to a potential customer to click through from an emailed DM to a web page, or even bother to type in a URL from a printed DM, only to find exactly the same content as they’ve just read. Simply replicating direct mail copy as web site content is risking losing the sale and denting business credibility.

Yet it can be surprisingly easy to find good “more information” that can be pulled together in one place and look seriously professional and helpful. Downloadable data sheets, white papers, research reports, press releases, case studies, as well as links to complementary products and services – they’re all valuable pieces of content for customers to view.

At the same time, it really is worth working to ensure that the content on the landing page is not an exact replication of the DM. The landing page can say more about features and benefits, prices and availability than will ever fit into a DM. And it will have its own call to action. Perhaps filling in a short form for a call back if customers want to talk, or a buy now facility.

As ever, it’s about looking at promotional content from the point of view of the potential customer. Are you getting their interest in the first place through the direct mail piece? Are you telling them on your web site what they want to know? Are you helping them to make the buying decision and place that order?