How to Beat Direct Mail Controls

BEATINGCONTROLSWINNINGDIRECTMAIL
Written By Ted Grigg
DMCG Results

If you are like most direct mail creative people, you've lost more than you've won.

Some super controls have resisted many attempts to beat them. The discouraging part is that those direct mail winners often look unlikely to win.

They follow the rules, but seem to lack the creative spark that separate them from the pack. So how do you beat them?

I think the secret lies within the offer itself. This is what makes the target audience respond to mail for high response rates. Repositioning the offer may make a big difference. For example, "two for one," "50% off" and "half price" represent the same offer. This repositioning alone may make the difference between success and failure.

Format also plays an important role

Test envelope formats containing a personalized letter and response form with a simple flyer. Stay away from heavy dependence on postcards or self-mailers. They rarely work as well on a cost per sale or cost per lead basis.

Reviewing the poor performers reveal copy and layouts to avoid. You should also look at competitor mailers that repeat. Direct marketers will not remail loosers.

Don't think great design, humor or witty copy like a brander

Concentrate on the recipient's problem and how your product will solve it. Sell with conviction, testimonials and third party endorsements. Use as much copy as you need to answer anticipated objections. Most of all, build urgency whenever possible.

Remember that direct response mail must sell. Do not entertain or impress the audience with flawless prose or award winning design. Focus on the need of an individual recipient and create an irresistible need to respond now.

Avoid stop action copy in the letter that stop the reader in the middle of your message. Mention links, phone numbers and references to other pieces in your mailing at the end of your letter. 

Successful direct mail revolves around a central theme or the main selling proposition. Don't try to do too many things in your selling message. Reduce the number of decisions your are asking the reader to make.

Strive for breakthroughs rather than incremental improvement

Breakthroughs happen only by testing significantly different creative executions. Test everything at once without worrying too about what element might make a huge difference in response.

A 25% plus reduction in the cost per sale or cost per lead qualifies as a breakthrough.

In your testing, don't spend too much time trying to figure out exactly “what” made the big difference. Take your gloves off and concentrate on testing different offers and main selling propositions.  

Ted Grigg
What Ted does best is increase response by beating controls, applying multiple channels to target markets, profiling customer databases and generally improving sales results using deep direct marketing principles. Regard Ted as your personal “think-tank” for your direct marketing planning and strategy development. After analyzing several hundred million dollars of direct response testing in all channels, he brings with him the knowledge accumulated from seeing what tends to work and what does not. Having worked on both the agency and client side of direct marketing, Ted understands the unique challenges faced by agencies and their clients. Agencies need to sell themselves and deliver sales results. And clients not only require results, but need ideas they can implement while focusing on tracking response using a relational database. If Ted brings nothing else to the table, by profiling customer databases and creating response propensity models, he quickly becomes the clients’ expert on their own customers. His formal training includes a BA from Abilene Christian University and two years of graduate work at Texas Tech University. For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, Ted developed a revolutionary direct mail format that beat most standing direct mail controls for this company. He also generated more profitable business for this firm by expanding compiled list circulation of less than 10% to more than 30% of total direct mail circulation within a year. (Insurance business generated by direct mail demonstrated higher persistency than customers coming from other media such as print and DRTV.) Ted’s plan and implementation of Medicare lead generation campaigns for over 60 regional and national HMO/PPO organizations combined multiple channels that surpassed some sales projections by as much as 60%. Additional industry experience over the last 30 years includes B2B or B2C for finance, securities, home security, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, government, technology, nonprofit, retail, transportation, communications, and multiple categories in the services industry. As the founder of Wyse Direct (a division for Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, OH), he successfully launched and branded a new technology product for Seiko-Mead by supporting a nationwide sales team with a predictable flow of qualified sales leads. While a VP of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, Ted acted as the direct marketing strategist who refocused the agency’s culture to attract new commercial and fundraising accounts. At the time, Grizzard was essentially a direct mail fund raising production operation. His leadership and team building effectiveness prepared Grizzard for the eventual Omnicom acquisition and Grizzard’s successful integration into Omnicom’s large group of advertising agencies. An independent DM consultant, Ted continues to write numerous articles and conduct webinars on direct marketing techniques. He also wrote The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan — A Step-by-Step Guide publishing it through Executive Enterprises in New York City. During his youth, Ted was raised in Lille, France with his missionary family attending French schools becoming fluent in reading and writing French. Away from the job, Ted is a computer geek, blogger and science fiction buff!
http://www.dmcgresults.com
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