News
 Four
Ways To Raise Direct Mail Response Rates, Two To
Avoid
Writing sales letters and brochures is both an art
and a science, says Tony Attwood of Hamilton House
Mailings. It’s important to have a sense of both.
There are only four ways of writing a direct mail ad
that will raise your response rate.
1. Sell on price
This is the oldest approach—and it works if you are
really sure you are less expensive than anyone else
and you are sure that your audience is not concerned
with quality. Of course, there's a downside to
selling on price alone. The problem is that it can
get you into a competitive price war, with negative
results for both you and your competition.
2. Headline a benefit
This is on page one of every marketing book. But
vast numbers of direct mailers still sell on
features. Benefits are things like "No more back
ache when you spend all day at a desk," or "double
the speed of your broadband at no extra cost."
Unfortunately, many still ignore benefits and
promote features.
3. Ask and answer an interesting question Pose a
question that you think could be interesting to your
reader. Spend a paragraph or two developing the
question and the issues around it. Then answer the
question. All the way through this, don't talk up
your product or company name; instead, have as close
to a conversation as you can get in direct mail with
your potential customer.
As an example, consider this headline: "What's the
simplest way of doubling the response rate in direct
mail?" If direct mail is your line of business, you
have to read it, even if it is just to prove "I'm
already doing that."
4. Use humor
Humor is widely used in radio, television and
particularly cinema advertising. But it is hardly
used at all in direct mail. A good starting point is
to present yourself at one with your audience, and
share with them some sort of issue that annoys them.
So if you are a business-to-business service, look
at the company's day-to-day work, find the thing
that really annoys them and raise a chuckle through
it.
Two Bad Approaches… What Not To Do
1. Announcements don't work.
Announcing in a headline something like "ABC Ltd
launches the XYZ laptop version 2" is close to
useless. If you then proceed to tell the reader that
you've been in the computer business for 20 years
and the XYZ is the very latest technology, then you
can be sure no one will read it. Don't talk about
yourself—talk about the reader and his/her wants and
needs.
2. Grabby images don't work.
"Grabby" images are graphics that aim to capture the
readers' attention in a gimmicky way. Grabby images
are everywhere: direct mail, TV, newspapers. And
yet, they simply don't work.
By Tony Attwood, chairman of Hamilton House
Mailings, UK, for MarketingProfs.com
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