In the travel industry, destination resorts and state/city CVBs, especially, it used to be that we used ads to drive consumers to call 1-800 numbers to request their FREE Travel Planner, or some other kind of fulfillment collateral. The consumer would receive the information, review it at home (where the purchase decision really happened) and either buy or not buy. Then we'd go back and direct mail those that didn't buy until some point in the future when they either bought, or our data analysis folks determined that the person was a lost cause and not worth remarketing to anymore. Over my career, I've seen this model work for a number of other products and services as well. Basically, anything that is a high-involvement purchase and/or big ticket purchase can and should use direct response marketing to help sell more product/service. Add in the trackability of direct response and you have a really effecient and effective marketing approach.
Now, fast forward 10 years. Computers are as common as cars and broadband penetration (either at home, work or a coffee shop) has reached critical mass. Consumers still do their homework on the living room couch, but chances are these days they aren't sifting through a handful of brochures. No, they're sifting through multiple open tabs on their their web browser comparing your offering to the competition's. And just as likely, they found those websites from a other source than a magazine ad. Likely they've clicked on a keyword, seen an online review, or talked to a friend. And if you're in the idea business (social media, advertising, law, CPA, etc.) chances are getting better every day that they found you through the best direct response lead generator out there - Twitter.
Twitter, like mass advertising, gives you an opportunity to reach millions (but more realistically thousands) of people - for free. The only hitch is that those folks have to elect to follow you, and not the content you used to bolt your advertising into (magazines). Re-read that sentece because it is a major point that many advertisers playing in this space completely ignore or don't understand. So you have to give consumers a reason to follow you. Information, insight, or humor - pick your tool, but be interesting. And like ads, which gave you a limited amount of space to speak in, Twitter only gives you 140 characters. So you have to choose your words carefully.
Additionally, you have to understad that people aren't on Twitter to be sold to or just to find information. Twitter is a community and while free to join, the price for entry is sharing. You have to (and should for that matter) enter into conversations with your followers. This creates a tribe (to steal Seth's term) and expands your reach beyond your own direct followers because each of your followers can with a mouse click retweet (take your information and share it with their followers) your offer or links to your site/blog. This creates a powerful multiplyer effect. Personally I have about 500 or so followers I can directly influence. But if you look at the combined followers of those 500... well you get the idea. If each one of them retweeted an offer for me, the reach is huge.
When you do finally develop a firm enough presence to begin pushing links to offers, blog, etc., you can use services like BudURL to track click-thrus on your link. Just like the offline direct marketers want to know how an offer performs, you too need to learn what links, offers, copy work in this new Twitter to Blog/Website Two Step world. Then test. It's cheap to create and diseminatie information/offers via Twitter/Blog/Website platforms, so test, test, test. Additionaly, when someone retweets your link and one of their followers clicks that link, you'll be able to track that too. So, with this information you can begin to start tracking which of your followers is a brand advocate and enter into deeper conversations with them or maybe just send a nice thank you note sometime.
A parting word of caution -- Twitter is for conversations not selling. Don't just use it to ask for to "click my junk" which is Twitterspeak for people who only see Twitter as a tool to sell. Embrace it for what it is - a community of passionate folks that are looking to find like minded individuals. The secret to using Twitter to sell is to find those folks that should be interested in what you have to offer (product/service) and then follow them. Watch their conversations. Participate in their conversations. And when appropriate, drop in a tweet and a link to something they'd want to know about on your blog/website.
You'll never sell with Twitter but it is a wonderful tool in the one-two step world of direct response marketing. Use it intelligently and watch the traffic to your blog/website rise on the days you tweet. Good luck. And stop back and let me know how it works out for you.
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