Are you searching for Marketing Solutions?
Reach your target market.

 

Marketing Solutions - Facts:

First, target selectively and tailor copy to specific narrow market segments. You'll do better by offering "desktop publishing systems for ad agencies," "desktop publishing systems for printers," "desktop publishing systems for graphic artists," and for other specific markets than just offering "desktop publishing systems" and mailing broadly and generically to small businesses. Review Chapter 4 for a refresher on why this is so.

 

Make your bait piece informative and specific, stress the offer of it in your letter copy, and response will increase substantially. Beef up your hard offer as well. Instead of offering to "have a sales-person call," offer a free seminar on voice mail. Or a free demonstration by phone. Or a free analysis of their current message-handling procedures by a qualified communications consultant.

 

Refresh you on the benefits and uses of soft and hard offers. "Do Pop-Ups, 3-D Mailings, Bulky Enclosures, Product Samples, and other such gimmicks work in direct mail?" They can, but often they're overkill. The advantage of a 3-D mailing (i.e., one which contains a gift item, product sample, videotape, or other object) is that it gets noticed. Ninety-nine percent of the direct mail your prospect receives is flat, so 3-D mailings stand out, gain attention, and get opened and looked at more than a lot of conventional direct mail.

 

The disadvantage of 3-D mailings is the expense. A regular mailing might cost anywhere from So cents to 8o cents apiece or so. A 3-D mailing, because of the cost of the enclosure and the additional postage, can easily run $r to $3 apiece or more, and I have seen many that cost $5 to $io apiece.

 

Make the right-hand margin ragged right. Never justify it. Try to avoid paragraphs longer than six lines deep. If you have a longer paragraph, break it into two or more paragraphs. Indent entire paragraphs you want to highlight by ten characters on each side. Always have the bottom of the first page end in mid-sentence.

This is an effective page turner and gets the reader over to page z. Add "over, please" to the bottom right. Typeset the headline of the letter for emphasis. If you are not typesetting the heading of the letter, set it off by putting it in a ruled box or a Johnson Box (a box around the heading that is made up of asterisks), putting white space around it, or using a second color. The main body copy should be black but an accent color can be used for subheads. Make the signature legible.

 

This is a more aggressive, active response toward initiating the next step in the selling process than the soft offer, "Send me a brochure.

More about Marketing Solutions.   See also: Marketing Direct To Consumers and Mail Postcards.

Response Makers - Marketing Solutions