12 Profitable Tips for Direct Mail and Web Marketing
Customers have emotional hot spots. Successful direct marketing uses as many ways as possible through copy, color, or graphics to trigger a response. Customers do not rationally choose products or services… direct marketing that moves people emotionally will move a product or service.
Knowing the customer is the number 1 commandment of direct marketing the more you know about your customer the more you will sell. It is much more than statistics.
People don’t accept chance with open arms. There is comfort in uniformity. Sweeping changes to designs, colors, merchandise, or direct marketing formats, without testing, are a sure way to turn your profit and loss red and have you having unwanted face time with your boss.
The leap of faith for a customer is to place an order. Direct mail and electronic marketing are impersonal businesses. There is no face-to-face interaction between the seller and the buyer. Trust… the more you reinforce it within your offer or guarantee, the more people will believe you are the real deal.
Likes attract likes. Direct marketing copy and graphics that relate to and target the specific demographic will be rewarded with a response.
It is estimated that most people in this country have an eighth grade level of reading comprehension. Speak over your customer in words they don’t understand and expect their response to be below expectations.
Today’s customers are sophisticated. They scan direct mail and e-marketing offers like a peregrine falcon on the hunt. Answer “what’s in it for me” questions up front or face having your direct mail or email marketing effort given up on the circular file, or clicked off.
The customer’s frustration does not lead to the answer. Difficult-to-navigate web pages, or difficult-to-follow order forms, layouts, copy, or type of any direct mail offer are barriers to response. Make it easy, clear and concise.
Words sell… seduce, involve and emotionally attract a customer. Words are your “silent salesperson” they are the vital links in making a sale. The sole function of the copy is to emotionally engage the customer, in easy-to-understand words, to maximize profit impact.
You may not use the word “you, your, or yourself” too much in the copy. It should be written as much as possible surrounded by words that do not have more than 5 letters. Simplicity sells! Don’t write copy above your target demographic, or they’ll definitely turn your bottom line red.
“Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead”…Customers are cynical by nature and when it comes to a direct mail offer. They post a mental guard around the product and the offer. Successful direct sellers know this and go to great lengths to bolster credibility, trust, and dispel cynicism.
Color plays a critical role in the success or failure of your direct mail or electronic marketing effort. The choice of color used in a catalog or direct mail offer, or on a web page is not for the pleasure of the designer, vice president or CEO. Its only function is to evoke a feeling that is translated into a response. The colors that sell are the ones that send the right emotional message about your product or company to the customer.
Successful direct marketing emotionally engages and moves a customer to respond. Customers are people like you and me. Customers who feel they have a relationship with your company will buy more…guaranteed. Offer your customers what they want… NOT what you think they should have.
Giving an item more space than it needs in a catalog or on the Internet does not increase sales proportionally. Increasing retail space on a proven winner should help sales, but it can never save an item that’s a dog. Only a client can tell you the winners and losers. What you think or like about a product… It doesn’t mean anything.
Today, the direct marketing business is a long and treacherous road filled with obstacles that can instantly turn success into a path to financial ruin. The day of “let’s fly up to the flagpole and see it fly” is long gone. Today, success is all about paying maniacal attention to detail and expanding new creative strategies (through testing) to build a better mousetrap.