A dot com client of ours offers insurance brokers an easy way to find and place so-called "specialty" policies, the type of policy not typically available through a broker's usual insurance company. Brokers and agents can log on to the site, find a company that offers the type of policy they're looking for, request quotes and complete the transaction, all online.

In a recent direct mail campaign launching the site, we conducted a number of tests, one of which was the following:

One segment of the audience received a mailer that promoted the site itself - ease of use, flexibility, speed, etc. The remaining names received a mailer that promoted a free e-mail newsletter - industry developments, special offers, selling tips, etc. Both mailers used free registration as the call to action. The newsletter offer generated 14 percent higher response. Why? Because the typical broker doesn't have a need for a specialty policy every day. By promoting the site itself, we were likely to capture leads only from those brokers who perceived either an immediate or impending need. By promoting the newsletter, we captured leads from that same group and in addition those brokers who anticipated a future need.

No matter what your product or service - travel tickets, IT consulting services, sales automation software - it's likely that only a small segment of your target audience has a need for what you're selling at any given time. By focusing your marketing campaign on the product, you're relying on not only reaching the right person, but the right person at the right time. By offering a newsletter, you can capture leads from a much larger audience, and then use the newsletter to "stay in front" of those prospects (at a much lower cost) until they have a need for your product