11 Steps to Direct Mail Success

Transcription

1 Volume 1, Issue Steps to Direct Mail Success DMCG, LLC/ Written by Ted Grigg for dmcg Even pros need to be reminded about how to keep their direct mail successful. I know that you have seen similar lists before, but as the title suggests, even experienced direct marketers need a refresher from time to time. Chris Christiansen, a copywriter friend of mine located in the Seattle area, shared a one-page list with me that he entitled Eleven-Point Checklist for Direct Mail Success. So I borrowed his list to develop this article because they align themselves so closely to my own experiences as a direct marketer. All copy surrounding the questions is fully my work. So please take issue with me rather than him if certain statements conflict with your own experiences. 1. Is the mailing competitively priced and within budget? Making this the number one point speaks mountains about the direct marketing creative professional s level of expertise. Chris recognizes that his job is not only to create attractive work that brands a product, but just as importantly, he must sell the client s products or services at an acceptable cost per sale. He knows that he must work within the framework of how much he can afford to spend to make the sale. This means knowing what direct mail formats cost, how to engineer them for the available printing technology and maximize cost efficiencies. This also means paying attention to postal rates and stocks that fit within the weight limitations. The DM creative team s knowledge expands beyond production costs and postal rates. The skilled DM copywriter understands the lettershop process and uses the information available on the database to personalize the message for each recipient as long as it fits the budget and appropriateness of the selling situation. The basic direct marketing creative team skills Knows that selling IS job #1 Understands how to control the direct mail production budget Uses the data on the database to leverage selling power Individual Highlights: Sense of unity in the package Pg.2 Is the letter personal? Pg.3 The importance of the title Pg.4 Touching on All of the benefits Pg.2 Knowing the audience Pg.3 Leading with your strength Pg.5

2 2. Is there a sense of unity to all components? This question explains why the industry typically calls a direct mail piece a package. A package positions a mailing piece as a cohesive whole. Each element supports the other. This also indicates why professionals do not take an existing brochure and attempt to incorporate it into a direct mail package where it doesn t fit. All elements fit graphically. And the pieces are designed to literally fit together at the lettershop level where the Business Reply Envelope allows proper clearance for machine insertion into the outer envelope. And depending upon the chosen format, the personalized letter or response form that drives the package shows through the window on the outer envelope for reliable delivery to the recipient s address. This is not your message. Remain personal and real in the whole package. Each element except for the outer envelope stands alone reiterating the offer, the product sale and the call to action. Each element, except for the outer envelope and Business Reply Envelope, stands alone reiterating the offer, the key product benefits and the call to action with web site address, telephone number and company mailing address. The respondent often discards certain elements of the package and when later returning to the saved piece, the buyer must know how to purchase and be reminded why she/he saved the piece in the first place. 3. Does the reader know exactly what s expected of him/her? This seems almost trivial. But clients often get too close to their promotions to realize that their language, deep knowledge of the product and other assumptions are so far removed from their customer s experience or mindset that the mailing fails miserably. Don t assume anything about what your customer knows or understands about your product. Make a clear call to action by including a time sensitive offer both with words and graphics. Include a coupon response form even though you expect 90% of your responses to come by phone. An order form says, I want you to respond to me. In fact, the call to action belongs in your brochure and your letter as well. Everything leads to asking for some type of response from the recipient. I am continually amazed by the packages I get that contain nothing except a flyer with pictures of the product, a little feature copy lacking a strong review of the benefits and no call to action whatsoever. Always tell the prospect what you want him/her to do. 4. Have you touched on all benefits? Here s the place to answer ALL of the customer s objections. Talk about lost opportunities if he fails to respond and what he gains by responding now. You will want to select the main selling proposition and focus on that theme throughout the package. But all of the benefits are repeated in each package element including the response device, the letter, and the flyer. Skilled writers emphasize the main or unique selling proposition in Page 2 of 6

3 the first line of the letter, the PS and sometimes even on the outer envelope. If possible, combine the main selling proposition with your offer. 5. Is the offer easy to understand? This is not the time to try and sell everything you have by offering multiple options. The KISS principle proves true here, because asking the recipient to make too many decisions in a long list of options means a delayed decision, and ultimately the death knell to your response rates. Make your offer easily understandable with one or two options at most. 6. Is the letter personal --- from one human to another? Don t sell organizational goals or what you are trying to do from your perspective, but sell your ideas, products or services as if you were writing a personal note to your mother, brother or friend one person at a time. Talk about the benefits the respondent will enjoy by responding immediately to your offer. 7. Do you substantiate all claims? Use testimonials from happy customers as a powerful tool to substantiate your claims. If you have scientific evidence, customer research or any form of external evidence to support your product benefits, then by all means, use them. Visualize your audience as an individual you know personally and write to that one person. 8. Do you have a clear image of your audience? What is your customer profile? Don t deal only with the demographics, but also understand the psychographics. Are you dealing with young women between the ages of 20 to 35? Do they own their homes, or are they renters. But more importantly, are they working outside the home? Are they pressured by household responsibilities combined with job pressures? Do they have children? If so, how many. Once you understand her stress and greatest fears and unrealized dreams, then you are ready to write to her with persuasive language speaking directly to her needs. Talk with her about how your product can help relieve some of her stress and help her get closer to her dream. That is why a personal, benefit-riddled letter is so critical to the successful direct mail package. Visualize your audience as an individual you know personally that fits your audience profile and write to that one person. You cannot believe how many letters I have written to my deceased grandmother selling her on what I knew she would want if she were still alive. Making money in direct means getting immediately to the benefits and dispensing with issues that do not contribute to them. Page 3 of 6

4 Believable testimonials talk about the good and do not shy away from areas they wish were better. 9. Do they have the same clear image of your company or of the person writing the letter? The communication goes two ways. What can you assume the recipient knows about the writer or the company that is writing to them? Is there already knowledge of what you offer, or even better, have you identified an emotional bridge between the customer and the company? That is why the sender of a letter --- or an --- is an important part of the marketer s arsenal. For example, do not send a lead generation letter from the sales manager who might come across as merely selling to fill his quota. Instead, send it from the product head or inventor of the product because his passion for the product sounds more believable. 10. Are you honest with your audience and does your presentation reflect that characteristic? Yes, I know. It is hard to believe that honesty is still the best policy. But genuineness in this advertising-drowned society seems to work as it always has. That is why real customers rather than the copywriter write the best testimonials. Believable testimonials talk about the good and do not shy away from areas that could be better. I am not suggesting that the sales piece should feature a list of true confessions, but powerful messages contain an element of honesty. The customer is not stupid and the message conveys your respect for all of your customers. The customer knows that you are not perfect, so your company provides money back guarantees and satisfaction guarantees with readily available customer service people who have published phone numbers and addresses. One of the most powerful tools available to high quality companies today is the open forum available on their web sites. Both customers and prospects who want to find out what kinds of complaints or issues buyers are experiencing with the company s products can log on to a forum within minutes of a purchase decision. They also see how the company deals with these problems. There is nowhere to hide. And prospects are smart enough to see if the company is making a real effort to resolve problems even when they are beyond what most would consider the company s responsibility. Page 4 of 6

5 11. Do you lead with your strongest sales argument? Does the copy flow? Your product or service offers many benefits, but which one will likely lead future buyers to consider buying your product? If you had 3 seconds to get your prospect s attention, what would it be? After all, in today s overburdened communications arena, that s all the time you will get regardless of whether the message is on a web site, a print advertisement, a broadcast advertisement or a direct mail package. Ideally, this key benefit is both unique to your offering and important to the prospect. But unique selling propositions today are more rare than four leaf clovers. So the best you can usually expect is to select a winning, main selling proposition. Focusing on the main selling proposition creates flow. I never will forget what one primary research project revealed about the power of the main selling proposition. This research, directed to Chief Marketing Officers and sponsored by a direct marketing agency I ran several years ago, conducted a broad based survey to uncover our strongest sales argument or main selling proposition for selling our direct marketing services. In the survey, these Chief Marketing Officers told us what they were looking for in a direct marketing resource. And our client history proved that we were able to deliver on all of them. But which one capability or client benefit should we feature to engage our prospects when speaking to them about all of the things we offered? Here is the list of what they were looking for in a direct marketing agency. -Ability to beat controls -Cost efficient media plans -Multi channel capabilities -Knowledge of their customer -Knowledge of their industry -Strategic planning capabilities -Knowledge of the branding discipline All of these were important to the hundreds of CMO s who participated in the research. But which main selling proposition should we use when communicating with these CMO prospects? " If were able to persuade our target audience that we possessed one of these select qualities, then we had them hooked. Our research group that conducted the survey for us created a perceptual map showing that if we were able to persuade our target audience that we possessed one of these specific qualities, then we had them hooked. Why? Because these CMOs would automatically give us credit for most of the capabilities listed above if we drove home our ability to deliver only one of these attributes. The perceptual map determined that the main selling proposition was our ability to understand the prospect s customer. So our future communications Page 5 of 6

6 1176 Pleasant Oaks Drive Lewisville, TX Phone: Fax: emphasized our strongest selling argument to open as many doors as possible with qualified prospects. We emphasized the fact that we were experts on our client s customers. And we reinforced this main selling proposition with customer testimonials substantiating our skills in understanding our client s customers. Our sales went through the roof once we knew what our prospects most wanted and found a way to lead with this point in all of our self-promotion messages. The conclusion? Listen to the results even if they defy your most cherished opinions The guiding principle throughout these 11 Steps to direct Mail Success revolves around the idea that knowledgeable direct marketers stand a better chance of winning if they test and then listen to the results. That means listening to the test results even if they contradict your personal opinion. Bear in mind that the recommendations in this article reflect hundreds of direct mail tests and millions of responses. So these standards are not compiled from what respondents have said, but rather what they actually do. In fact, when presented with the statements made in this article, most direct mail respondents would deny that these are the types of things they respond to. But the evidence is irrefutable. So does this means that one cannot do better with new ideas? Certainly not. But new ideas should disprove these principles first through controlled A/B split testing before concluding that they do not work. Go with what works first, and only then proceed to test concepts that might displace what you know works. Here s the answer to the question, What does Ted Grigg and dmcg do? We perform the following functions. -Turnkey direct mail campaign planning and implementation. -Test strategy development for maximum rollout potential. -Multi-channel campaign planning and implementation for lead generation programs. -List research and database building. -Creative concept development. -Back-end sales analyses.