Direct Marketing Guide

Direct marketing is a very specific sub-discipline with its own rules within marketing.  It offers several advantages to the marketer:

• It allows you to target specific people.
• It enables you to tailor your message for each person.
• It is action-oriented.
• It is confidential.
• It’s economical.
• You can track and measure the response rate and the return on investment.
• You will be able to significantly and continuously improve its effectiveness over time.

The three most important elements of direct mail response are the list, the offer, and the creative.  Of the three, the list is by far the most important.

The List

• You will have the most success with your current customer list (typically, it provides 2 to 10 times the response rate of a rented list). Beyond that, always seek out frequently updated lists.
• Use a list broker that you trust.
• Profile your current (or prospective) customer base (behavioral and demographic characteristics) and compare that to the profiles of the various lists that you are considering.
• Test each of the lists that you are considering (ask for free names or rent the minimum number of names possible).

The Offer

• Provide an incentive for the recipient to act immediately (“free”…, free product trial, % off, premiums, sweepstakes; for B2B: kits, white papers, research reports).
• Maximize the perceived value of the offer.
• Provide an easy way to respond (1-800 number, postage-paid response card, coupon or web site address).
• Code the response devices to be able to track the effectiveness of the offer.
• Make the offer time sensitive in some way.
• Specify a response deadline (not too short, not too long).
• Provide a guarantee if appropriate.
• Avoid offers that are vague, generic, offered by most of your competitors or seem too good to be true.
• Test responses to various offers.

The Creative

• Use the Johnson Box area (top right corner of the letter) to plainly state your offer.
• Start the letter with a powerful, attention grabbing, benefit-driven statement.
• Talk to the recipient in his or her own language — be conversational.
• Use the word “you” as much as possible.
• Always use the “active voice.”
• Write long copy, but use short words, sentences and paragraphs.
• Maximize subheads to call-out important offers, benefits, and points of differentiation
• Sell benefits, not features.
• Appeal to the “head” and to the “heart.”
• Personalize the letter to the extent possible.
• Your copy should be sympathetic to the recipient’s problems.
• Use words to “paint a picture” – help the recipient to envision a desired or undesired end state.
• The “fear of loss” is more powerful that the “hope of gain.”
• Including testimonials and case studies often helps.
• Include a strong, clear call to action.
• The problem-solution construct almost always works – think about the five P’s: picture, problem, promise, proof, and push.
• Always use a P.S. (restate your proposition here).  After the Johnson Box, this is the most read portion of the letter.
• Test various versions of the copy.

Other Considerations

• Personalize the envelope.
• Design the envelop/packaging to maximize its possibility of being opened.
• Dimensional packaging has a much higher chance of being opened.
• Test envelope solutions.
• Time the mailing for maximum response.
• Carefully time follow-up contacts to substantially increase response rates.
• Always take the opportunity to thank your current customers

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