Tag Archive for increase response

28 May 2010
Direct Mail

Tips for Compelling Mail

Use your own list

Your own list of customers and prospects who know you and have previously responded to your advertisements will generate a much greater response. Update your list frequently with changed addresses.

What is in it for the reader

What excites you may not be what resonates with your audience. What’s most important to your reader isn’t your product or service; it’s how that product or service improves their life. Talk in terms of their interests to generate a higher response rate.

Personalize your message

Past customers won’t need the same message as potential clients who have never dealt with your company. The more relevant the message is for your intended audience, the better your response rate.

Get past the recycle bin

To get your direct mail piece past the shredder and into the right hands:

  • Address to a specific person, not just a job title or occupant.
  • For business mail, use a standard size envelope and make it look like personal correspondence as much as possible.
  • Also for business mail, try using language like “Requested Information Enclosed” so it looks like the addressee is expecting it.
  • Using a stamp usually increases response.

Make it easy for the recipient to respond

Many mail pieces have gone out without complete contact information. Make sure to include your phone number, website address, email address and any other way your want to interact. And if people contact you, make sure you get back to them right away.

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12 May 2010
Direct Mail • Marketing Strategy

Tips to Make Direct Mail Work Smarter

Direct mail remains a vital component of marketers’ programs. Direct mail is becoming more sophisticated and is capable of delivering higher results. Late last year Randy Spurrier shared his thoughts about ways to improve mail’s results in a post on IMedia Connection. Some direct marketers are transitioning away from “blast” campaigns and are moving toward highly integrated, direct mail-meets-online formats that combine relevant mailers, personal URLs (PURLs), triggered and targeted follow up communication, variable content, and more.

Creating a relevant dialogue with customers is becoming crucial today. Response rates for relevant mailers, are typically 2-4 times higher than non-relevant ones. When customized direct mail is combined with interactive elements such as PURLs, triggered follow-up, and additional relevant communications timed at just the right intervals, response rates can climb up to 10 times.

It’s fairly easy to transition from an un-targeted direct mail program to a next-generation, relevance-based one. Most marketers have all the data they need to create fully automated, relevant direct mail-meets-online programs today. The way to leverage this data painlessly is to implement technology. Solutions allow marketers to set up, run, and optimize marketing programs automatically.

Here are a few strategies to get you started.

Automate from the get-go. One-to-one marketing programs, of course, would be out of reach from a cost and time perspective if you had to manually change messaging and set delivery parameters for each individual person. To get started with there are ways to harness technology to send customized print mailers (each with a link to a PURL with relevant offers and recommendations), and then, depending on the customer’s actions, automatically send timely follow-ups all throughout the purchase process.

Get the message right. The segmentation modeling used to determine whom to mail to does not determine what to say to those people. How do you know what they want to hear? Implement rules and technology to leverage your data to guide a relevant message and individualized offer for each prospect. Use propensity-to-buy modeling and purchase analysis to identify topics of interest that will form the basis of your relevant messaging. This will be used to deliver relevant and personalized messages.

Maintain the dialogue. Guiding your customer through the purchase process at every step is key to boosting conversions, especially when it comes to considered purchases. Communicate at timed intervals with automated touches, PURLs with engaging advice and recommendations, and even outbound sales calls. Keep your marketing engine rule-based, allowing you to deliver data-driven messages and automatically “trigger” new touches based on customers’ interactive feedback.

For example, your marketing technology and rules should be able to trigger timely touches based on customer responses, inquiries, or purchases. Say you send a customized mailer with a link to a PURL to a prospect. If they don’t visit the PURL after one week, you could send a follow-up mailing. If they visit the PURL or phone the call-center but don’t close within five days, the engine would send a second follow-up print touch offering an alternative video recommendation or a more compelling promotion. The PURL could be updated to reflect the new offer or product recommendation communicated in each follow-up touch.

If you send your prospects relevant and fully-customized mailers — integrating technology — they’ll not only keep your mailer out of the recycling bin, they’ll reward your efforts by making more purchases.

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07 May 2010
Direct Mail • Marketing Strategy

Timing

DMNews ran a great article titled “When marketing, travel through the four dimensions of time” by Paul Mandeville. They say “timing is everything”, it may not be everything but it sure can play a big part in the success of marketing efforts.

Mr. Mandeville suggests that in a marketing campaign timing has four facets:

Timing  (Recency)– the nearness of a message to a customer event that triggers that message, for example, sending a coupon for related accessories within 3 days of purchase.

Frequency – the number of times you choose to send a similarly themed messages before you stop further attempts, for example customers should receive three messages from you within the first month of purchase and at least one message every three months for the first year or two after that trigger purchase.

Pacing – the amount of time between messages of a similar theme, for example sent the first message within 72 hours, and if no reply, send message #2 seven days after purchase, and if still no reply, send final message #3 ten days after purchase.

Sequencing – the act of coordinated, separate but related content.

The article stated that financial services and retail firms have been able to achieve a double digit lift in response, without increasing their discount offers, simply by using timing to their advantage. You can do the same. Direct mail is a great way to implement this strategy or include it as a part of your marketing that speaks directly to your customer when they want to hear from you.

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05 May 2010
Advertising • Direct Mail

Writing About Intangibles

To help you create messages that sell more of what can’t be seen, we are sharing an article by Pat Friesen that appeared in Target Marketing Magazine. Whether you sell insurance, toilet tune-ups, home loans, teleconferencing, investment services or other intangibles, we hope these tips help.

  • Call to action. This is basic, but often overlooked and undervalued. Tell people what you want them to do and why they should do it. What action do you want your customer to take as a result of receiving your message? What can you do to motivate your customer to call, click or complete an application?
  • Humanize benefits. Show people enjoying the end benefit of what you sell. For example, most parents want their children to get an education. So, if you market loans or insurance, show a smiling graduate in cap and gown with a benefit caption below it.
  • “You can’t say that.” The next time your attorney or compliance officer utters these words after reading your copy, respond with, “OK, what can I say?” It may mean changing just one or two words, and may make your copy even stronger.
  • Engage them with something unusual. Providing toilet tune-ups is more attention-grabbing than saying you check for leaks and rusted parts.
  • Focus on customer benefits, not company history. Nobody really cares that you are headquartered in Omaha, Neb., and have been in business for more than a hundred years unless you tell them why it’s important. Such as, you have a hundred-year history of paying claims promptly, and customer service calls are all taken in the heart of America, not offshore.
  • Create an offer with value that supports what you sell. Instead of giving away pricey tangibles such as iPods or free dinners, provide an easy-to-use calculator or a free checklist. Consumers value information that educates and empowers.
  • Keep it simple. Intangibles are often perceived as being difficult to understand. Confusion slows down decision making and results in avoidance. Your marketing mission is to make your product simple and understandable.
  • Never use the words “applying is easy” … unless it’s true. When was the last time you completed your company’s application? Give it to five people who fit your customer profile but don’t work for your company, and ask them to fill it out. Watch them do it. Simple-to-complete applications/forms combine the right words with good design, simple organization and readable typefaces.
  • Write in plain English. Yes, insurance and financial services do have regulatory content that must be included. However, don’t pepper your marketing copy with killer words like “undersigned” and “the party of the first part”. Instead, use plain English that’s easily understood.
  • Have your creative team work as a team. No matter which media you use, you get the best, most effective end product when you have your writer, designer, programmer and others involved in the creative process work together. Don’t isolate them.
  • Cross-sell. Cross-sell to both customers and prospects.
  • Reactivate. Policy holders lapse and account owners close their accounts, but this doesn’t mean they don’t want to do business with you again. Did you know that customers that previously had a relationship with you are more likely to buy than cold prospects? However, they need reassurance that you still love them. And they need to be asked. This applies across all industries, all products and services, tangible and intangible. In economic times like these, reactivation is one of the most cost-effective ways to generate new business.

How can we help you deliver a message about the intangible benefits that you bring to your customers?

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30 Mar 2010
Advertising • Design • Direct Mail

Postcard Design Idea Sparks

We found some ideas about postcard design at this site from Chuck Green on Ideabook.com.

What is the purpose of a post card?

“Greetings from” and rotating racks decorated with pictures of places great and small—those are the type of messages associated with post cards. The marketing potential of a simple card is unbounded. You can show something such as a photograph of a new product, a remodeled showroom or the impressive gear you use to provide your service. You can double your advertising impact by sending cards to your mailing list with a reprint of your magazine ad. Send a reminder of an upcoming event. Ask for an appointment and follow up with a phone call. Step one? Establish a clear mission for your card.

Why is it done the way it’s done

Why are post cards designed the way they are? For reasons of cost and contact. First, since private postal cards were authorized by Congress in the late 1800’s, they have been the among the least expensive way to put a printed piece in the hands of your prospect. And because a standard post card can’t be smaller than 3 1/2 by 5 inches or larger than 4 1/4 by 6 inches it is easy to handle, sort, and deliver. Plus, the design improves your odds of making contact. A post card message is out in the open, eliminating the real possibility your prospect might toss a sealed envelope.

If cost is less important than impact, you may spend a few cents more to mail a card up to 6 1/8 by 11 1/2 inches—a size that demands more attention.

How can You do it most effectively?

With your mission and a strategy established, the challenge is to execute effectively. Let’s say you have a list of a few hundred prospects with whom you hope to establish a relationship. You could use the shotgun approach and run a series of ads in a local publication that you hope they might see. Or you could pinpoint your prospects by printing a half dozen series of post cards, each featuring a different advantage of doing business with you, and mail them, one each month for the next six months. Which would be more effective?

Start with these post card ideas and create your own variations, see more information about postcards.

  1. Bust the size barrier. Once you exceed the 4 1/4 by 6 inch maximum for a standard-sized card, you may as well take advantage of the 6 1/8 by 11 1/2 inch maximum. You’ll pay extra to mail it, but this super-sized format allows more dramatic graphics and a more detailed message.
  2. Request a response. Every good marketing piece has a specific call to action. Why not ask your prospect to respond on the spot? This post card has two missions—first, to request some survey information. The “How’d we do?” half is detached and returned to the sender by business reply mail. The second half, labeled “Keep this card by your phone,” is a way to keep the company’s name in front of the customer. The postage for this 2-card format may be higher, but the added value can be well worth it.
  3. Work the cliche. The old-fashioned picture post card is a theme you can use to your advantage. This design plays on what you expect a post card to be. But what looks like a souvenir from a museum is actually an announcement from a restaurant. A painting by the Impressionist Monet graces one side, the message, set in elegant type is opposite.
  4. Make contact. The reason direct mail is all dressed up with fonts and graphics is because it wasn’t long ago letters and cards were mostly handwritten—fancy type and pictures were something different. Today, the opposite true? Don’t you pay special attention to a handwritten message? The idea here is to print a supply of post cards on which you can jot down messages that keep you in the front of your customer’s mind.
  5. Create a ticket. When you use a post card as a discount coupon or a ticket to an event, you raise the possibility of a response. The message here is obvious—bring the card in and get a discount.
  6. Publish a mystery. You may have seen this technique used on billboards—pieces are added one at a time until, one day, you drive by and discover the total message. The same type of mystery message can be posted and solved in a series of post cards. You simply divide the finished message into puzzle pieces and sent them in sequence. In most cases, the cost of printing cards drops substantially when you print several different designs at the same time—you may be surprised to find how practical this possibility is.
  7. Make news. Post cards are great for spreading the news. Next time a new captain takes the wheel, you move to a new location, announce a product, or add a new service—publish the news by post card.
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18 Mar 2010
Advertising • Direct Mail

Copywriting Checklist

Pat Friesen put together a checklist for Target Marketing Magazine to help business owners, product managers or marketing/advertising directors provide direction and input to writers who have the important assignment of crafting messages that generate response—whether it’s a click, call or car trip to a store or event.

Even if you are not a writer, you play a key role in the success or failure of the copy and content copywriters develop because of one or all of the following:

  • You know the product inside and out—its strengths, weaknesses and unique benefits.
  • You understand the major motivators and buying objections that influence buyers and nonbuyers. You know the competition, its strengths and vulnerabilities.
  • You have access to customer complaints, testimonials and much more.
  • You have insights, ideas and detailed information your copywriter wants and needs to craft a compelling sales message.

This copy checklist is designed to help you give direction and input to your writers. While every project may not require everything outlined, use this as a guide.

  1. What is your objective? Do you want to beat the control by X percent? Generate one-step sales or qualified leads? Strengthen relationships? Introduce a new product? Increase average order size? Initiate Web site involvement? Test media, offers or other direct marketing elements? Transform a one-time trier into a second-time buyer? Generate referrals or measurable forward-to-a-friend activity? Your writer needs to understand what you want to achieve and how success will be measured.
  2. What is the brand personality? Is the brand upbeat and innovative or classic and conservative? Does the brand have a spokesperson? Is there an established copy voice, tone and vocabulary? Provide examples so these can be sustained.
  3. Who is the audience? Is the message directed to a customer or prospect? Multibuyer or first-time trier? Decision maker or decision influencer? What is the average age, household income, educational background of the targeted reader? What is the comfort level with the media selected to deliver the message (e.g., postal mail, TV, etc.)? The customer/prospect profile you provide helps your writer envision the individual person to whom he or she is writing instead of a sea of nameless, faceless people.
  4. What is the product/service? Provide features and corresponding benefits. Identify the top three features/benefits of interest to the targeted audience. What are the truly unique features/benefits? Price? Ordering specifications (size, color, etc.)? Is it new? Improved? A best-seller? Back by popular demand? Also provide competitive advantages and disadvantages.
  5. What is the offer? Because the offer is what generates response, make sure to provide your writer with all elements of your offer and why they are included (e.g., discounts, deadlines, guarantees, premiums, other incentives, delivery options, payment options, etc.). Remember your offer is more than just a product or service, discount, or free shipping; it’s a package of elements bundled together to address key buying objections and push fence-sitters over the edge of indecision.
  6. What are the top three buying objections? Provide prioritized information about why people don’t buy your product or service. Your writer needs to address these objections—either directly or indirectly.
  7. What is the call to action? Do you want people to respond by phone, mail, e-mail, online ordering, clickthrough to a Web site, in-store or at an event? Is a unique landing page required? If the objective is generating leads, provide a sample of the fulfillment package, and/or tell the writer what will happen after a prospect raises his or her hand as a qualified lead.
  8. What is the format? For direct mail, is it a postcard, solo package, self-mailer, box, tube or some other format? For space advertising, is it a full- or half-page ad? Back page, back cover? All of these details provide your writer with additional ammunition for crafting a control-beating message.
  9. What media is being used? Direct mail lists, e-mail lists, TV, radio, space advertising, etc. Tip: If you’re testing e-mail vs. postal mail, be careful about directly picking up traditional letter copy and testing it in e-mail.
  10. What is the test plan? Are you testing copy? Creative? Formats? Lists? List segments? Offers? Timing? Other direct marketing elements?
  11. Will the copy be translated into languages other than English? While this may not directly affect the copy your writer develops, it may influence the overall creative approach.
  12. What other copy resources are available to the writer? Interviews with customers? Sales people? Customer service staff? Product managers? Product developers? (Tip: Product developers know valuable details about the quality of the ingredients or other details no one else knows or thinks to mention. Customers also have a way of revealing benefits often overlooked by or unknown to marketing staff.)
  13. Provide a product sample. Writers like to try what they are writing about because it provides firsthand experience with product benefits.
  14. Offer a sample of the control. Some writers prefer not to see the control e-mail, mailing package or space ad they are trying to beat. At least offer it to your writer.
  15. Provide Web links, when appropriate. Provide specific links you want included in direct mail, space ad, e-mail, e-newsletter, landing page and Web site copy.
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16 Mar 2010
Design • Direct Mail • Marketing Plan

Creative Planning To Strengthen Your Marketing

Target Marketing Magazine included some great tips and considerations for creative planning as a part of suggestions for campaign planning meetings. We want to help you think about these as you plan your Direct Marketing.

The Offer

Remember, an offer can be a full-price product with special value.

  • Why was it created?
  • What problem will it solve for your customer?
  • What are we asking the customer to do?
  • What is the overall strategy?
  • What are the goals in terms of response rate or overall sales, and how is the offer going to help reach those goals?

The Audience

  • Who is getting this piece, and what is his relationship to your company? The message that you send to a customer should be drastically different from the message you send to a prospect, who may not even know who you are.
  • Think about the individual person behind the demographics. What will motivate him? What is his attitude toward what you are selling?
  • What key words can you use to speak directly to his needs?

The Brand

  • Your brand isn’t your logo; it’s the consumer’s perception of your company. How can you remind—or for a prospect, introduce—the recipient of your unique point of differentiation?
  • How can you prove that you are delivering on your brand promise?
  • What words and visual cues can you use to reiterate your brand?

The Format

  • What is the format, and why was it chosen? This is especially important to explore when using a solo package including multiple components. Explore each component, discussing the hierarchy of each piece.
  • Can the format be improved? Your production manager may be able to explain important options and opportunities as ideas are generated.

The Creative

  • What visuals will help grab attention and quickly explain your offer?
  • Where are the hot spots in your format, and how will you use them to your advantage?
  • How will you exploit an offer and make sure it is seen?
  • How many times will the offer be repeated and where?
  • How will the recipient process the piece—what will he look at first? If it’s a mailing, how will the envelope entice him to open it? If it’s a postcard or e-mail, how will you identify or introduce yourself at a glance and answer for the consumer, “What’s in it for me?”
  • What copy will intrigue the reader the most?
  • How much copy will be required and at what ratio to images?
  • How can you show value in every product? Is it necessary to include additional insets or callouts to showcase benefits?
  • Review the creative and production schedules: Who will work on the piece first; who will work on it second?
  • What is the proofing and editing process?
  • Together, create a list of must-haves: phone number, URL, fax and registered trademarks.
  • Are multiple versions necessary to accommodate different 
customer segments?

There is no guarantee that your project will run smoothly from beginning to end, but with the right planning—an understanding of the offer, audience, brand position, format and creative strategy —you have a head start. Take the time to talk through all of these points before the design process begins, and your program will generate better results.

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12 Mar 2010
Design • Direct Mail

Direct Mail Hot Spots

Target Marketing Magazine published a great article a couple of years ago about how readers eyes move around a mail piece. We all do this so many times without thinking.

A hot spot is where your eye goes first when you look at a postcard, outer envelope, catalog spread, direct mail letter, space ad or even an e-mail.

Most of us had our first experience with hot spots in elementary school when we looked for easy ways to study for tests. We wanted to pick out key points to review without reading entire chapters. What did we do?

We looked at chapter titles, subheads, terms in boldface type, maps, charts, graphs, photos, and the captions under them. In other words, we looked at hot spots. From this experience, we’ve trained ourselves to look for eye-grabbing design and copy elements. We use these signs for scanning copy and deciding whether or not we’ll read the rest. Here are 10 things every direct mail writer, designer and approving manager should know about hot spots; nine tips for putting these road signs in action; and six techniques to avoid.

What You Need to Know

  1. All formats have hot spots. This applies to postcards, self-mailers, letters, envelopes, brochures, order forms, catalogs, e-mail, space ads and even buck slip inserts.
  2. Some hot spots are innate to the direct mail component in which they’re found, such as the return address on an outer envelope or the saluation or P.S. in  a letter. (Did you know 30 percent of the people read the P.S. first?)
  3. Other hot spots are created to capture and direct the reader’s attention, such as the dot-whack teaser on an outer envelope or corner slash on a catalog cover.
  4. Outer envelope hot spots include: corner card/return address in the upper left-hand corner, addressing, postage, teaser copy on front or back and the back flap.
  5. A checklist of letter hot spots include: letterhead/masthead, salutation, first sentence, first paragraph, Johnson box area in the upper-right corner, last paragraph, signature and title, P.S., P.P.S., P.P.P.S., copy underlined or indented, bulleted, or boldface copy, indented subheads, and handwriting in the margins.
  6. Hot spots are useful for controlling eye flow. For example, if someone reads only three things in your letter, which three things do you want him to read? And how can you use hot spots to make sure they get read?
  7. You have three seconds or less to grab your reader’s attention; hot spots are critical for quickly getting the reader involved in your mail piece.
  8. Direct mail designers use type fonts and sizes, background colors, borders, violators, copy placement, images, callouts and other graphic tools to create hot spots.
  9. Direct mail writers create compelling hot-spot copy using the words “you” or “free”, customer testimonials, major benefits, strong calls to action, action verbs at the start of sentences and headlines, and other direct response techniques.
  10. Hot spots are a team effort; writers and designers need to work together to make them effective.

Hot Spots in Action

  1. Add a person or group of people to the photo of your office building or store, and you’ll transform the photo into a more interesting hot spot. The eye naturally is drawn to photos that include people or human elements, such as hands, feet or eyes.
  2. Double the impact of photos by adding captions. When your reader looks at a photo, he or she looks below the photo for a caption. Use captions to highlight major benefits, focus on points of competitive differentiation or provide a strong call to action.
  3. Create hot spots that break up long copy by using headlines, and subheads, photo captions, bullets, violators, testimonials, sidebar stories, charts, icons drawing attention to phone numbers and URLs and callouts. Rarely is a letter, brochure, insert or order form read from top to bottom, start to finish. Readers look for copy interests them in bite-size pieces.
  4. Use hot spots on response devices to restate benefits, showcase your guarantee, restate the call to action and response options, provide methods of payment, and offer shipping options.
  5. State and restate major benefits in hot spots so your benefit story won’t get overlooked.
  6. Position your major benefit at the beginning of a sentence, paragraph or headline. Don’t bury it in the middle.
  7. Do not color-coordinate every component in your mailing. Instead, use a bright yellow free gift insert or fluorescent-orange burst to highlight a customer testimonial in your letter.
  8. Use hot spots appropriately. They don’t necessarily have to be big or bold. For example, the salutation of a letter doesn’t need to be large, colorful or even personalized to draw the readers eye to draw the readers eye to it. It’s a natural hot spot. However, it does need to be appropriately accurate to establish a rapport between the individual receiving and the person signing the letter. Used appropriately, “Dear Friend” and “Dear Preferred Customer” can both be equally effective. Be very careful with “Dear Sir” it is not appropriate or effective with women.
  9. Use hot spots strategically to gently move the reader’s eye from one place to another. Don’t fill your outer envelope with bright bursts of copy and expect it to get read. Too much of a good thing is not a good idea.

Words of Caution

As much as hot spots encourage scanners to become readers, there also are techniques that stifle readership. In most cases, you want to avoid:

  1. dense copy blocks filled with long sentences;
  2. large amounts of copy in difficult-to-read red or reversed-out type;
  3. long headlines in all caps;
  4. gray-screened backgrounds for copy;
  5. body copy in smaller than 10-point type and/or in sans serif type; and
  6. justified copy that creates odd word spacing.

How else can we inspire you to lead your readers eyes with Direct Mail?

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09 Mar 2010
Direct Mail

Direct Marketing Math

Direct mail and direct marketing are all about results and return. Hopefully finding all these formulas in one place is helpful.

Response Percent                     =          (responses / mail quantity)  X 100

Raw Cost Per Response          =          cost per package / response rate

Break Even Response Rate    =          cost per package / cost per response

Average Order                           =          sales dollars / number of orders

Loaded Cost Per Response    =          (cost per package / response rate)  +  fulfillment  +  telemarketing

Profit per Buyer                          =          profit dollars / number of buyers

Marketing Cost Per Order        =          marketing cost / number of orders

Load Cost Per Sale                  =          cost per lead / closing rate

Maximum Package Cost         =          cost per response  X  response rate

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09 Feb 2010
Buying Behavior • Design • Direct Mail

The Power of Touch

Real Simple Magazine printed an extract of research results from The University of Wisconsin-Madison that found that 30 seconds is all you need to feel attached to an item after touching it. Research says you are 39 percent more likely to buy an item you touch as opposed to one you never handle.

Retailers, is there anything you can do to encourage your customers to touch things?

What about mail? Can you get a sample or a representation into the hands of your next customers?

University of Wisconsin-Madison Associate Professor of Marketing Joann Peck and Jennifer Wiggins of Kent State University found that the simple addition of a fuzzy dot glued to the cover of a mailing piece encouraged readers to spend more time with the mailer and increased response.

Talk to us about other ways to include something to touch with your direct mail.

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