By Michael Stelzner
Today’s “I want it now” culture dictates that you make people happy by providing what they want, when they want it. Need information? Google it.
However, is it really wise for marketing folks to satisfy people’s desire for instant access?
M. Scott Peck describes delayed gratification as a sacrifice of present comforts for future gain in his book, The Road Less Traveled. By NOT providing people what they want, when they want it, you can actually improve your image, enhance your branding and increase your sales.
Why?
Unlike any other point in history, we can immediately access information. With this great accessibility comes information overload. With information overload comes poor retention. With poor retention comes weak branding results. And if no one remembers your brand-business stagnates.
As marketing guru John Reese explains, “People are becoming bored, numb and almost trance-like when it comes to navigating the vast amount of information that is freely available in today’s networked society. But, when there is the opportunity to look forward to something, it breaks the cycle. Anticipation has been a marketing weapon for years. The bottom line, ‘anticipation’ does one thing and does one thing well… IT INCREASES RESPONSE.”
The Common Delivery Mistake
Let’s say you have some great information and have formatted it into a white paper. Presumably, you are presenting a sample of the content and then asking people to do something to gain access to the rest.
Now here’s the big mistake many marketers make: They simply send on the requested information immediately after the form has been completed.
The logic goes like this: “I have captured my lead and that’s all I care about.” However, there is a much bigger marketing opportunity you may be overlooking. With immediate access after registration, you end up simply making a very quick impression on readers that is easily forgotten. Because the only post-registration touch point is the document itself, you are banking fully on the strength of your paper to do all of your selling.
If you could, wouldn’t you rather have four or five touch points?
Delayed Response Marketing
There are acceptable ways to get a few marketing messages delivered and improve your image, while maintaining your reader’s interest. By slightly delaying the delivery of the white paper, you leverage the power of anticipation.
Here is the delayed response marketing principle applied:
Touch Point 1 - The “Thank-You” page: After the registration form is submitted, send the reader to a “Thank you for registering” page. This is where you make your first pitch for some of your value-added services. You should also include the email address your document will be sent from so folks can add it to their white lists (increasing delivery rates). See a sample here: http://www.stelzner.com/copy-HowTo-thanks.html.
Touch Point 2 - The “Registration Confirmation” email: Set up an autoresponder that immediately sends a thank-you message to new registrants. This is where you can confirm receipt of the request and state, “While you are waiting for our paper, you might be interested in this other information.” You can link to some of your services, your blog and so on.
Touch Point 3 - Send the content one hour later: Set up a delayed message that sends the requested document (or links to a page that contains it) after an hour has gone by. Be sure to mention again some of the other services you offer.
Touch Point 4 - The actual document: The white paper is the final touch point. By this time, the reader has been expecting your content and should be familiar with your company and brand.
Touch Point 5 - Your newsletter (optional): If you have a newsletter, it would be wise to add the option to subscribe to it on your registration form. Set up a three-day delay and send a special prefabricated edition of your newsletter. This provides another opportunity to get your name in front of prospects and also provide valuable content to readers.
The Benefits of Delay
By NOT sending what readers want right away, you can actually:
- Increase your name recognition: Every time the prospect reads something from you, your name becomes etched in their brain. More touch points mean more chances you will gain their business.
- Establish a relationship: By sending well-crafted messages, you begin the process of establishing trust with your prospect. These relationship-forming steps help take you from an information dispenser to an advocate.
- Increase your open rates: Because readers are expecting an email from you, your thank-you message and follow-up message will have very high open rates. This is the prime time to mention related products and services.
- Improve the desire to read the document: When the final document arrives, the reader will have been prepared for this great piece. The delayed gratification concept kicks in and they will likely treat your work as extra-special, devoting time to your useful resource.
About the author: Michael Stelzner is the author of the book Writing White Papers. Learn more by visiting http://www.writingwhitepapers.com/blog/.
March 10th, 2008 at 10:55 am
With the competition for your audience, you really need to balance standing out from the crowd with user expectation and satisfaction.
For example, I expected to have access to this whitepaper immediately. I scanned the email received, as most people do, and didn’t pick up on the point that I’ll have to wait for my white paper.
The design of the page (http://www.stelzner.com/copy-HowTo-thanks.html) made me believe the title was a link, so here I am trying to click on it to open the white paper and nothing’s happening.
I go back to my email thinking maybe the link to the white paper was in there. This is where I discover I’ve got to wait to get it.
However, I’m in the middle of researching a topic and need my answer now. What happens next? I go somewhere else for the answer and by the time I get access to your white paper, I’ll be long past the interest level…it’ll sit with my other email newsletters waiting for me to have time to read it or clean out my inbox.
My responding to this topic is a direct result of further research to get the answers I was looking for - and you’ll see that I left your website. It just so happens that I landed on one of your blog posts sitting on another resource website.