The Internet has made responding to a direct marketing campaign as easy as clicking a mouse. However, as a marketer, it's also easy to get carried away by the Web's interactive capability and in the process, give your target audience too many options.

For example, click on the average banner ad, and you'll land on a splash page that includes the standard array of links to other sections of the company's Web site ("About Us," "Products," "Support," etc.) Not only does this invite visitors to explore the site without ever telling that company who they are (or how they got there), but it also causes people to hesitate ("Which link shall I click on next?") and in direct marketing (as in life), he who hesitates is lost.

This raises a fundamental rule of direct marketing that in this Internet age, merits revisiting. The rule is this: Give your reader one offer, and one offer only.

If you ask someone to register for your Web seminar but add as a further option "If you can't attend, check this box to receive more information about our product," you may create more leads, but you almost certainly will generate fewer participants at your seminar. (Reason: prospects will always opt for the path of least commitment.) Just as likely, however, you will lose people altogether, because by asking them to decide between one offer and another, you will make them hesitate.

Decide what it is you want your program to achieve and stick to it. Avoid the temptation to maximize your investment by trying to do too many things at once - for example, "come by our booth or call us for more information" or "call to upgrade now or see our Web site for more details."

Direct marketing is all about getting people to act, and to act immediately. Give people a reason to pause, and they will pause long enough to think twice about responding.