7 Pointers on Making Direct Mail Succeed

Use dynamic photos/illustrations

Graphics boost results only when they help tell a story that engages your sales prospect. Your logotype, a picture of your building, or mug shots of your management team won’t do the job. Show happy, attractive people enjoying your product. Or a clear diagram telling how to use it.

Personalize

It boosts response by 30% or more. Insert your prospect’s name (spelled correctly) in your body copy. Better yet, in your headline.

Make compelling calls to action

Tell your reader exactly what to do, and what benefit he can expect when he does it. Whenever possible, include a deadline date.

Tell a story

“The facts, ma’am, just the facts” might have worked for Detective Joe Friday. But it’s unlikely to generate orders for you. Pure information bores readers. They want to know how they will benefit by accepting your offer. Use case histories, testimonials, a strong guarantee, even a little romance.

Test your offer

Don’t guess about price points! It could lose you big bucks. Remember that a customer who places $1,000 in orders long term is worth spending hundreds of dollars to sign up the first time. Always, test only one factor at a time. You can experiment with more than one, if what you want is an unreadable test.

Track your responses

Keep detailed numbers on the results of all your promotions. That way, you more and more will be able accurately to target your market. Once you find an approach that works, don’t tinker with it until its results begin to droop.

Put teeth into your guarantee

Hard-to-grasp guarantees depress response. So does fine print and legal gobbledygook. Model your guarantee after the L.L. Bean classic:

“Our products are guaranteed to give 100% satisfaction in every way. Return anything purchased from us at any time if it proves otherwise. We do not want you to have anything from L.L. Bean that is not completely satisfactory.”