The 3 Key Elements That Make Direct Response Advertising Work
By Dean Rieck, direct mail copywriter

Some time ago, I received a call from a young marketing manager at a large technology firm in San Francisco. He was running a direct mail program that wasn't working and wanted my help to diagnose the problem.

He gave me all the details about the company’s product development, sophisticated branding strategy, focus group results, and a surprisingly long and expensive creative process with their ad agency.

As he talked, I looked through the samples and design mock-ups he had previously overnighted to my office. They were gorgeous. Four-color printing, high-quality paper, die cuts, the works. All very impressive stuff. Unfortunately, they all lacked the three simple elements that make direct response advertising work.

These three requirements are so obvious, you may be tempted to ignore them. However, they are all absolutely essential. If just one is missing, your direct response message will fail no matter what medium you’re using.

Here they are:
                   • Offer
                   • Information
                   • Response

To understand how important these three elements are, remember that direct marketing is not retail marketing. In retail, you create products, ship them to a store, and wait for people to buy them. Advertising that supports retail is intended to create brand preferences, so that when you get to a store you’ll buy one product rather than another. In this form of advertising, the ad is separated from the buying decision.

Direct marketing, on the other hand, cuts out the retail middleman and sells directly to the buyer. Advertising that supports direct marketing is intended to sell products immediately or generate inquiries so sales reps can sell the products. The ad and the buying decision are together. That’s why it’s called direct response advertising. It must trigger a response directly or it fails.

To trigger a direct response, you need each of the three elements listed above. First, you need an offer. In retail, you can wait around for people to decide they want to buy something at a particular price, but you can’t wait around in direct marketing. Your offer must be enticing enough to make people act right now.

An offer is the combination of various elements, including the product itself, along with the price, unit of sale, trial period, optional features, terms, incentives, guarantee, time or quantity limit, shipping and handling, future obligations, etc. There are an infinite number of ways to make an offer. And you never know exactly which variation will prove most successful. So it’s important to test. (See my extensive list of popular offers at http://www.directcreative.com/deans-list-of-proven-offers.html).

Second, you need information. And you need enough of it to allow people to make a decision about your offer. If they can’t make up their minds, they don’t respond. No response means no sale. How much information is enough? That depends on what you’re selling and the price you're asking for it. You can sell a subscription to Time magazine with little more than a discount invoice in an envelope because virtually everyone is familiar with the publication. But most products and services require more explanation.

In general, the less familiar people are with the product category and the product itself, the more information you need. When in doubt, it’s always better to err on the side of too much information. If it’s well-presented, people can get the information they want and ignore the rest. That’s an argument for long copy.

Third, you need response, specifically an easy means of response. Assuming that you’ve made an enticing offer and provided enough information for people to make a decision, you don’t want anything to get in the way of people actually responding. The easier it is to respond, the more response you’ll get. Toll-free numbers and postage-paid reply cards and envelopes are the primary means of making response easy, but you can also use e-mail, fax, and Web-based response mechanisms.

Offer, Information, Response. These three things are absolute. You must have them all. No exceptions. Unfortunately, the marketing manager who called me considered this too basic to warrant his attention. And he was certain that a tweaked headline or a different color scheme would do the trick. It didn’t. The company eventually burned through its startup capital and closed shop.

Oh well. At least their ad agency got rich.

---Source: Dean Rieck is a leading direct mail copywriter. For more copywriting and selling tips, sign up for Dean’s FREE direct response newsletter and get a free report, 99 Easy Ways to Boost Your Direct Mail Response.