Twitter.
Why do I need it and why do I care?
That’s been my reaction for the last two years.
I first heard about Twitter over two years ago when my friend Joe Orr told me about it at the System Seminar. That would be the closest I’d come to getting on Twitter until two weeks ago.
So, why did I sit on the sidelines for the last two years?
I guess I’m one part late adapter and one part contrarian. Plus, I just didn’t see why it mattered when I have healthy email and direct mail lists. That was my “case against Twitter.”
Well, I was pleasantly surprised to discover there’s much more to Twitter than I ever imagined and the traffic explosions to this site are proof of that.
As a marketer and copywriter, I see Twitter as both a marketing channel and a testing medium.
As a marketing channel, it’s ideal for these reasons:
- Twitter is all about instant gratification. Send a tweet and within seconds, the Twitter universe is reading it.
- Twitter appeals to the A.D.D. (attention deficit disorder) in all of us in this digital age because you have 140 characters max to craft your message.
- Twitter creates the illusion of importance. A shopping bag lady on 6th Avenue can have thousands of followers by creating a free account using a computer at the New York Public Library.
And as a testing medium it’s fabalicious (made up word).
Craft your pithiest tweet or headline and plug in a URL. If it’s hot, you’ll see a stampede of traffic heading to the page — provided it’s one of your own sites with Analytics installed. If it’s not hot, you’ll see the tumbleweeds blowing by.
Besides getting an 800% spike in traffic in one day, I’ve been noticing traffic from diverse sources that I’ve never seen before.
These stats are from the first two weeks in May.
Facebook traffic? Never got much before.
Gizmodo…what’s that?
Ycombinator.com? Never heard of it, yet it sent 1,441 visitors in a day.
Twitter seems to set off little firestorms of traffic in the most unusual places. Yesterday, one of the About.com editors created a link to one of this site’s pages. Again, never had that happen B.T. (before Twitter).
Most importantly, the bounce rates, TOPs (time on page) and CTRs (click through rates) were very respectable. Ditto for conversion to opt-in.
As a comparison, this site has appeared on the home page of StumbleUpon.com several times and the traffic has been about as untargeted as it gets. Bounce rates in the 90′s and 10 seconds time on the page.
Moreover, I’ve noticed the weekend traffic — the lightest of the week — has picked up by 50%. Whether this will last over the long haul is anybody’s guess but the short term results alone are worth reporting.
Questions:
Here are some of my observations after being on Twitter for two weeks.
How important is it to amass followers?
It seems to me that the rules of quality list building apply here. Though a DM or email list is by no means a pure analogy to Twitter. I’d rather have a relevant, responsive list of 1,000 people who KNOW me instead of 100,000 random names or in this case, followers. Though unlike the direct mail world where there’s a cost associated with dead weight names, there doesn’t seem to be a downside to having meaningless followers in addition to relevant ones. Plus, it seems the sheer force of inertia kicks in at some point and the followers just keep coming. Take a look at Shaq or Ashton Kutcher on Twitter.
What about reciprocity?
You follow me and I’ll follow you seems to be the unwritten rule for most Twitterers because that’s what makes your list of followers grow the fastest. In my case, except for “follow spam” I follow in kind, those who follow me. But after two weeks of using Twitter, it seems clear that one needs multiple IDs to have a sane user experience. At the most basic, one marketing/business ID and one personal ID, though a pure marketer would segment each and every niche into separate ID’s.
Is it possible to effectively Twitter with all the spam tweets?
What’s true in the broader marketing world is also true on Twitter. 80% of the people usually get it wrong. A smaller percentage will be more or less on target. And a smaller percentage than that will win most of the marbles. Understand, I’m talking about using Twitter purely for marketing and lead generation.
My case in point are all the annoying direct messages one gets bombarded with after following another Twitter user. Like:
- “I REALLY appreciate the follow. If I can help you with Klamath Falls Real Estate please let me know.”
- “Hi! Free travel advice.”
- “Get fit, both physcally AND financially.”
Never mind that I don’t know where Klamath Falls is, nor desire free travel advice — especially not free travel advice, nor wish to get fit “physcally” fit (his spelling, perhaps a combination of physically and fiscally?)
Of course, the deluge of messages are about how to get more Twitter followers and make more money or some combination of the two.
So, when a smart marketer sends a tweet, it tends to rise above the noise. The ones who do this consistently become the thought leaders.
And speaking of smart marketers, if you’re going to offer a free widget or a “Twitter trinket,” why not make it one with universal interest. Here’s a neat one that Malaysian marketer, Kenneth Yu, has put together called The Dark Side of Twitter.
Anyway, to wrap it up, in just two weeks, I’ve gone from Twitter apathetic to really appreciating the service and planning new ways to market using the Twitter channel.
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Twitter may be headed to the moon with 17 million US visitors in April but there’s surprising evidence that a “Twitter-like” service called the Notificator was up and running in London in 1935.
Robot Messenger Displays Person-to-Person Notes In Public
Source: Modern Mechanix (Aug, 1935)
TO AID persons who wish to make or cancel appointments or inform friends of their whereabouts, a robot message carrier has been introduced in London, England. Known as the “notificator,” the new machine is installed in streets, stores, railroad stations or other public places where individuals may leave messages for friends.
The user walks up on a small platform in front of the machine, writes a brief message on a continuous strip of paper and drops a coin in the slot. The inscription moves up behind a glass panel where it remains in public view for at least two hours so that the person for whom it is intended may have sufficient time to observe the note at the appointed place. The machine is similar in appearance to a candy-vending device.
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Now I approach a tragic epoch in my life. I was close to my limits in Grand Rapids. The offer from Lord & Thomas gave me wider recognition. Ambition surged within me, because of my mother’s blood. I became anxious to go higher.
But I had built a new home in Grand Rapids. All the friends I knew were about me. There I enjoyed prestige. I knew that in a larger field I would have to sacrifice the things that I loved most.More on My Life In Advertising (Chapter 5: Larger Fields) Claude Hopkins
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That contact with Mr. Bissell led to frequent contacts. Soon we entered the cold-weather season when my duties became heavy.
“I hear you are working hard,” Mr. Bissell said to me one day.
I replied, “I should work hard, for I have so many easy months.”
He insisted on the details, and he learned that I was leaving my office at two o’clock in the morning and appearing again at eight. Like all big men whom I have known, he was a tremendous worker. He had always done the average work of three men. So the hours that I kept gave him interest in me, and he urged me to join his office force.More on My Life In Advertising (Chapter 4: How I Got My Start In Advertising) Claude Hopkins
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Up to my graduation from high school my ambition was the ministry. I was an earnest Bible Student. The greatest game we had in our house was repeating Bible verses. We took turns, as in a spelling bee, going around the circle, until all dropped out save one, I was always that one. I had memorized more verses than anyone I met.
Often the minister dropped in, but he was no competitor of mine in a Bible competition. I knew several times as many verses. At the age of seven I was writing sermons and setting them in my father’s printing-office. Often in prayer-meetings I spoke a short sermon. Thus all came to regard me as a coming pulpit orator. I was made valedictorian of my class at school. My graduating essay was on ambition, and I still remember how I denounced it, how I pleaded for poverty and service.
More on My Life In Advertising (Chapter 3: My Start In Business) Claude Hopkins
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(May 1, 2011) I can’t count the emails from marketers outside the U.S. who complain about not being able to order Breakthrough Advertising.
It sells on Boardroom’s and Amazon’s sites for $95.
Only problem is Boardroom does not ship outside the U.S.
Here’s your chance to get a FREE copy of the world’s most stolen advertising book when you reserve your copy of The Bill Jayme Collection… which is impossible to get if you live outside of the U.S. … for the reason mentioned above.
I’m down to just 2 copies (8:42 am PDT) of them on my desk and have mailed to most of my house file just now. I do make a few dollars off this but it’s more of a public service for my housefile since it’s not worth my time.
This will likely be the last time I offer this in 2011, so if you see a live link below, it means I still have at least one set of The Bill Jayme Collection and Breakthrough Advertising to send you by First Class Air Mail or UPS, depending on the country you live in.
If you place your order by Monday, May 2nd, you’ll also receive 45 days of access to The Ultimate Online Swipe File… a $150 value. Your login and password will be sent to you within 24 hours of your order.
Bill Jayme Collection Order Link (All major Credit Cards & PayPal)
One of my favorite direct mail letters starts off:
“Dear Reader,
It was Scott Fitzgerald who observed, “The rich are different from us.”
It was Ernest Hemingway who then shot back, “Yes. They have more money.”
…so before you accept this invitation to move up higher financially, you may want to consider some of the pros and cons.”
The letter then has two columns listing the “disadvantages of being rich” and “the advantages of being rich.”
Ten disadvantages are cited in the left column, including, “You’ll start hearing from long lost cousins looking for loans.”
The right column is barren space, till you turn to the next page, where you see circled in red, “You’ll have tons more money.”
This and 209 other direct mail masterpieces await you when you crack open one of the most important direct marketing packages to be released this year.
It’s called “The Bill Jayme Collection.”
But don’t expect a deluge of emails announcing this landmark collection from the Internet marketing hucksters.
There won’t be any since there’s no kickback involved.
While on the subject, the term launch has almost become a pejorative.
You know what I’m talking about.
“Our servers have crashed due to the flood of orders but we’ll be re-opening tomorrow to offer the final 100 copies…so hurry.”
The email message is then regurgitated a dozen times before it fades away. Till the next “new thing.”
Internet marketing launches don’t add up to chump change compared to the dozens of magazines launched by team Jayme and Ratalahti. One of them, for American Health, brought in 250,000 paid subscriptions and allowed the publisher to exit with $29 million in 1990.
I’m almost tempted to invoke Guy Kawasaki’s testimonial for Brenda Ueland’s book, If You Want To Write: “If you buy this book and it doesn’t help you, I will give you your money back.”
The New York Times Magazine article, “Junk Mail’s Top Dogs,” on Jayme and Ratalahti.
The Bill Jayme Collection: Master of Direct Mail Marketing.
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Father owned a newspaper in a prosperous lumbering city. The people had money to send, so advertisers flocked there. We smile now as we remember the ads. of those days, but we smile at the hoopskirts, too.
Most of the advertisements were paid for in trade. Our home became a warehouse of advertised merchandise. I remember that at one time we had six pianos and six sewing-machines in stock.More on My Life In Advertising (Chapter 2: Lessons In Advertising And Selling) Claude Hopkins
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This book is not written as a personal history, but as a business story. I have tried to avoid trivialities and to confine myself to matters of instructive interest. The chief object behind every episode is to offer helpful suggestions to those who will follow me. And to save them some of the midnight groping which I did.
One night in Los Angeles, I told this story to Ben Hampton, writer, publisher, and advertising man. He listened for hours without interruption, because he saw in this career so much of value to beginners. He never rested until he had my promise to set down the story for publication.More on My Life In Advertising (Chapter 1: Early Influences) Claude Hopkins
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This lead generation ad for how to get-rich-in-real-estate appeared in “Popular Mechanics” just a few weeks before Black Thursday and the eventual market crash of 1929.
That $100,000 in today’s dollars would be about $1.3 million, so that was quite a claim to make. Reminiscent of the real estate gurus of our not so distant past?
This is one of the first recognizable to the 21st Century marketer’s eyes, get-rich-in-real-estate ads and it was published by a company called American Business Builders.
This ad and their biz-op ads in general were in a word — phenomenal.
You get the feeling that a heavyweight copywriter, like Victor Schwab, had a hand in this but since so much of Schwab’s oeuvre has never been identified, we may never know.
Notice the interesting coupon with the year the company was founded and its business capital.
Once again…nothing new under the sun.
Click the thumb to DL the PDF.
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Last week, I posted a 36 page PDF of Harvey Brody’s presentation on the tollbooth or toll position concept. Yes, it probably could have been condensed into half that number of pages and no, it was not a setup to sell you one of his products.
Here are eight tollbooths I came up with. The list could be expanded but it’s a decent starting place.
Review Site Tollbooths
Angie’s List (AngiesList.com) is a rating service for residential contractors, like painters, plumbers and repairmen, with annual memberships starting at $35. The beauty of this tollbooth is its content, like Amazon.com is user generated. But, unlike Amazon with its huge warehouses, inventories and distribution systems, there’s almost no overhead besides advertising and hosting. Angie’s list does somewhere around $30 million per year in revenue. RatedPeople.com, in the U.K is similar to Angie’s List. More on Creating Your Own Tollbooth And 8 Examples
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