Now if I got that postcard and it said this company is offering a free system analysis to the first 25 people that respond in the greater Anytown area, then I may have more reason to respond. They might say, “You know, our computers are really screwed up. This free system analysis, it says there's no obligation, no purchase required or anything like that. I want to be one of the first 25. I'd better call them now.”

IT Marketing: Limit Your Response One Way or Another

If you don't want to limit it to the number of people, limit it by date. The urgency and the scarcity can do absolute wonders. Talk to anyone who's serious about direct mail or online marketing. Urgency and scarcity are extremely powerful motivators. If you want someone to take action with the response that you can measure, you must give them a deadline on your IT marketing materials.

IT Marketing: Learn from the Experts

If you want help with designing direct response marketing, you need to talk to a direct response marketing expert. In most cases, it's going to be a copywriter or it's going to be someone that's retired from a big advertising company and specialized in direct response.

Just asking for general business advice from a business owner is not going to help you. The type of person that's ideal for generating strong responses is someone that comes from a mail order background, direct mail background, does a lot of online advertising, or has worked for an advertising agency that's done a lot of direct selling where there's measured response.

The Bottom Line about IT Marketing

The key things are urgency, scarcity, deadlines, compelling headlines, compelling points of pain and something that motivates them to take action now.

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