Direct response marketing is simply an advertisement that asks for an immediate response. It doesn’t ask the prospect to sit around for a month. The letter specifically asks the prospect to do something right then, as soon as they are finished reading or watching the ad.

It seems to me that the majority of direct response advertising out there is in two arenas: Infomercials and Sales Letters. Not everyone is up at 3:00am watching infomercials, but everyone gets “junk mail” delievered to their door.

Sales letters make up a pretty big industry. And with the widespread use of the interenet and email over the last decade, the industry just seems to be getting bigger (Look up the Direct Marketing Association for stats). I’ve decided to give it a go myself.

Yesterday I initiated a little test campaign for my direct response marketing skills. I wrote an email that will be mailed out to quite a few prospects off of a targeted, opt-in list. The email asks the prospect to click through to my site, Education Finder, and find information on a school or program that interests them. It doesn’t just say that I have a site, but rather asks them to visit it right away.

The mailing will go out during this next week, and I’m quite eager to see the results. I know that my sales letter skills are pretty weak right now, but they’ll get better with time.

A bonus to this type of marketing is that I will know exactly how many people clicked through. I will be able to count exactly how many propects responed to my email, and how many of them converted on my site. Exact numbers. That’s just good data.