The Makings for Direct Mail Success

By Sabine Lenz

Ever wonder what makes a good direct mail piece, which creative pulls the best results and why some mailing lists are better than others? I scan my mail every day for those very answers, but there’s more than meets the eye.

To uncover some of these direct mail success secrets, I talked with Christine Erna of Concord Litho. With more than 25 years of experience in direct mail, analysis and training, she’s just the person to put us on the right direct mail track.

SL: So Christine, with all the e-options available today, why should we care about direct mail in the first place?

CE: Well, the name of the new game is multi-channel – reaching your target audience multiple times in various channels or methods to achieve a better response rate. Statistics show that people love to get direct mail. Research reveals that when you reach somebody multiple times in more methods – and one of those is a direct mail channel – then you are more apt to get them to notice your marketing efforts.

SL: Can you tell us what a response rate is and how you measure it?

CE: A response rate is the result of your marketing offer. If you have a truly multi-channel, integrated program, you send an e-mail, you send a direct mail, you have different tracking mechanisms on each piece to see how people respond. You’re measuring who responded by what particular channel or method. Then you calculate that against your cost to see what your return is and how that measures up to your goal.

SL: So basically, each device, part or piece of the multi-channel campaign would have a different code so you see which one people responded to?

CE: Yeah, that’s one particular way of testing. There are certainly other ways. For example, with direct mail, you can use a personalized URL, or you can also use a code in an e-mail marketing message. You can have a unique code associated with those different channels to see if recipients responded from the direct piece versus the e-mail message.

SL: As we all know, it takes several times to reach somebody so that’s a great way to incorporate this. What’s the average response rate? What can we expect?

CE: Well, that’s the million-dollar question. It’s very difficult to answer because there are some marketing industry analysts and experts out there that will throw out response numbers from half a percent to two percent. I personally believe it depends on what you’re offering and whether it’s relevant to your target audience. I’ve always used an analogy in the past that if I sent a postcard offering people a $100 bill, I’d get a pretty high response rate.

SL: There are three parts to each direct mail campaign – the list, the offer and the creative. How important is each element? How important is the list compared to the offer or the creative?

CE: I wish that I could say you can divide those three equally and that each one is as important as the other. They do each hold their own weight. At the end of the day, you can have the best creative and the best offer with that $100 bill, but if you’re not reaching the right person or the right audience, the creative and the offer is of no value.

Statistics and history have shown that – and these are flexible based upon the type of business – 80 percent of your effort should be in the list (massaging and segmenting that list) and then divide the remaining 20 percent up between your offer and the creative.

SL: So, if the list is 80 percent of what the direct mail piece is all about, then point us in the right direction. What should we look out for?

CE: Address quality within Postal Service standards is extremely important to make sure you’re maintaining accurate addresses. There’s nothing worse than not being able to reach one of your top customers because they’ve moved and you haven’t updated your mailing list. There are move/update processes that people should be doing to their mailing lists.

Within your own house mailing list, which is typically the most relevant and important, you need to be able to identify specific traits of customers like purchasing history and add that to your house list.

There are services that you can use that glean information (and maintain it) on gender, household income, number of children and lifestyle so that you can speak more relevantly to potential customers.

SL: What about the 10 percent that makes up the offer. Are there any tips to consider on the offer, like offering something free or at a discount? What’s a good offer? What is an enticing offer?

CE: It’s going to vary based upon the type of business you’re in, whether you’re targeting the business-to-business environment, whether you’re targeting a business-to-consumer environment, whether you’re selling a $100,000 piece of equipment versus asking someone for a donation. Then there’s everything in between.

You really have to understand to whom you’re targeting and what’s the relevance of what you’re trying to get from them. There are industry statistics on the type of buzzwords to use in the offer – whether it’s free, whether it’s discounted, whether it’s half-off – if you’re selling services or you’re selling a particular product.

But then there’s a whole other type of offer, so to speak, that if you’re in the fundraising or nonprofit environment trying to get people to respond by giving you a donation for your cause. The enticement in this situation would be helping out a child that needs food, helping rebuild this or that, whatever the cause might be.

SL: But in the average environment, are offers that include the words “Free,” “Discount” and “Percentage Off” or using phrases like “Act Now” in the call for action still a good drawing card?

CE: (Or “Expiring Soon” as the case may be.) Yes, use key words that create a sense of urgency.

SL: Now I have to ask, of course, about the creative because I’m a designer. Let’s start first with what formats we have to choose from.

CE: Typically, there are five different formats to consider: postcard, self-mailer, booklet-style mailer, envelope package and dimensional package.

You start with a postcard, which obviously is very simple. It doesn’t take any effort for someone to see the information you’re offering. It’s the least expensive to produce and the least expensive as far as postage and mailing. That’s a very convenient format for people to use.

We have a success story of a manufacturing company that produces a piece of equipment that had a program to send out direct mail pieces once a quarter. They actually sold a $500,000 machine based upon a direct mail postcard.

SL: A postcard?

CE: Yes.

SL: What about the self-mailer?

CE: With the self-mailer, you’re obviously creating more real estate to drive your message. It can be very economical to produce a self-mailer. As with the postcard, it lends itself to using variable data and variable graphics when printed in a digital environment that enable you to target specifics to a client that they will find relevant.

You have that real estate on the outside where the address is to grab their attention, whether it’s with graphics, whether it’s with the offer right there with a tag line.

The booklet format is usually something that has a spine on it or a glued-in spine. It’s a great format, and we see a lot of those in the mail stream with the changes a couple of years ago.

SL: Next one up then would be an envelope, like a #10 envelope?

CE: That’s one size option. The sizes can vary from a small 4 x 6 envelope all the way to 9 x 12 or 10 x 13 and everything in between. An envelope package has its use in the world for creative. For example, in the fundraising arena where you may be putting sample cards that you want to give to a client when asking for a donation. It could be a date book, a bookmark or a variety of premium products contained within that particular package. In more times than not, you’re also including a reply envelope for a person to respond to the particular offer that you’re messaging to them.

SL: So this is not your average flat envelope that we receive. What you’re saying is there’s something in there. It could be some sticker or Post-It notes or whatever makes it more attractive to open in the first place?

CE: Exactly.

SL: Okay. That makes it more enticing because people want to know what’s inside the envelope.

CE: Absolutely. If it’s got some thickness or heaviness to it, they say, “What’s in here?” You have your options whether it’s a closed-face or whether there’s a window with a letter on the inside that might be driving the address for delivery.

Obviously, it’s a little more expensive to produce not only the envelope, but also all the contents that will be going into the envelope. There’s more time required for the production and assembly of all of that. But again, there are certain circumstances where that’s the best type of creative to use.

SL: The last one you mentioned was the dimensional package.

CE: The dimensional package is actually three-dimensional, whether it’s a box, a tube or a bubble mailer. Typically, they’re most expensive to produce and mail, but it could have a much larger response depending upon who you’re mailing it to, what your offer is and what the content is.

A lot of people will use that for mailing a DVD or a promotional project that’s going to entice the recipient to respond to a particular offer. The creative that goes around a dimensional package can be really fun. Statistically, a dimensional package, while more expensive to produce, will typically have a very good response.

SL: Let’s talk testing. I know Concord Litho is famous for its testing different aspects of a mailer. What should we test? You just brought it up. What should we do? Should we redesign the whole thing? Where should we start with the testing?

CE: It’s very critical to make sure that you’re not testing more than one element. Say you have a #10 package that has had a very successful response rate, and it contains an 8.5 x 14 letter, a #9 reply envelope, a sample of stickers and a bookmark. This package pulls very well and that would become your control package.

To create a test, you’re only going to change one of those four elements. It may be swapping out the bookmark for a date book. So now you have stickers and a date book in one test, and you have the control package that has the bookmark, the stickers and the letter.

SL: So listen up, everybody, only one element at a time. So if you change the headlines, don’t change anything else. Otherwise, you do not know what actually triggered the change in response rate.

CE: Absolutely.

SL: As with advertising, I assume a one-time mailer is not the way to go. Advertising usually says, “We have to be in front of somebody seven times before there is a reaction.” Is there a rule of thumb on how many times one should mail and how often? What kind of strategy do you recommend?

CE: There is no one set answer that is applicable to all business environments and strategies. It is that there are multiple touches through various channels, but those channels are going to be determined based upon your business, who your target audience is, and the individual business type that you have.

It’s very easy to do a cross-media, integrated, multi-channel direct marketing program provided you have the elements to be able to test the various channels to know that your strategy is working.

	To listen … to the complete interview, please click here. Sabine and Christine discuss the “slim jim” format, its mailing advantages and creative disadvantages; how many times you should mail that direct mail piece; the truth behind that push/pull theory; the different types of lists and data you can purchase; and which of the five typical mailing formats gets the best results.

About Sabine Lenz: Seeing designers worldwide struggle to stay current with new papers and paper trends inspired Sabine Lenz to create PaperSpecs, an independent and comprehensive Web-based paper selection tool and weekly e-newsletter. Growing up in Germany, she started her design career in Frankfurt, before moving on to Australia and the United States. Lenz worked on design projects ranging from corporate identities to major road shows and product launches. From start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, her list of clients included Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Deutsche Bank, IBM and KPMG. Lenz is a noted speaker and author on paper issues and educational topics related to the paper industry.

 

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