In so many ways, the Internet has made direct marketing a whole lot easier for all of us. The investment required in time and effort to buy keyword advertising, write e-mail newsletter ads, place sponsored text links and so on is a fraction of what used to be required of direct mail, or for that matter, even broadcast e-mail. (HTML? Who has the time?)

But it would be a gross error of judgment to mistake "easy" for "effective". And indeed, though we frequently recommend and execute many of the advertising vehicles mentioned above, there seems to be a direct correlation between the "ease" of a particular campaign and the thought (or lack thereof) that goes into it.

The worst examples of no-thought direct marketing (and by no coincidence, what most people think are the easiest campaigns to execute) are often text-based advertising: keyword ads, sponsored links, and newsletter ads. Here are the two key mistakes we see time and time again:

• No offer

  Perhaps it's because they have so few words to work with, companies think mentioning the offer in a text ad is a luxury they can't afford. On the contrary. Forget the offer, or include it only as an afterthought, and you eliminate all those prospects who have the very problem your product can solve, would gladly respond to free information (or event, or whatever) showing how to solve it, but just don't feel that they need a product to do it for them. If you do nothing but add the words: "Free (Insert Offer Here)" (Free Kit, Free Seminar, etc.) as the very first thing prospects read in your ad, you will increase response substantially.

• No landing page

  It shouldn't be a surprise that marketers would find it difficult to invest more time in the "back end" of a campaign (the landing page) than they do on the front (the ad). Yet this is exactly what should happen if these ads are to be most effective. It boggles the mind to see, for example, how many text ads on Google and elsewhere link to plain, everyday Web pages on the advertisers' Web sites. Or a newsletter ad (that I saw this past week) for a white paper that links to a general "request information" page.

  A landing page has the same impact on your campaign as your ad. Increase your conversion rate (clicks to leads) by 2X and you double response. Take the time. Customize your page to a specific offer (and nothing else) and eliminate all links to elsewhere on your site. Sure, it takes time, and money, and setting up another unique URL. But it's worth it.