What the heck is marketing, anyhow?

So many people are involved in marketing, but most people don't know the definition. Even when you ask a marketing person the definition, they hem and haw. Perhaps it's because marketing is such a broad based term, it's like asking what's the definition of "Business." My definition runs 7 words if you count the "a".

When you offer your products to anyone, that's selling. When you place your customers into groups you can define, and separate them from everyone else in the world, and target your sales efforts specifically to them, that's marketing.

What is Direct Marketing?

A manufacturer takes out an ad in a consumer or trade magazine. Someone sees the ad, and calls and orders the product - or more likely sends an inquiry. The firm sends literature, then the customer places an order. Simple. Lots of business sales are direct.

Direct marketing means you have no sales force to move your products into the marketplace and you solicit buyers by selling directly to them. No representatives to get your products onto retailers or consumers shelves. And no retailer or wholesaler link in the distribution chain. You do it all yourself. Direct marketing to me is selling directly to a consumer or business from a magazine or newspaper ad, a telephone campaign, direct response TV ad, or from a direct mail package. I'm not really concerned with whose shelves our goods wind up on, just that they move off our own shelves and we get paid in a timely fashion.

What is a good response to a mailing?

Probably the most asked direct marketing question, ever. And people are usually looking for a number like 2%, 10%, or 25%.

A successful single mailing (for orders) is any mailing that breaks even or better the first time out. Because you learn from this mailing, the chances of tuning it up for the second time to increase the response even further are very good.

Percentages are no indication of success. If you are offering a free watch, you may get a 90% response for the watch, but no sales on the back end. If you are offering a free brochure about your two million dollar printing press, response can be .002% - but if one press is sold, the mailing is a success. Without knowing the mailing objectives, profit per order, the offer, the list, and the audience any percentages have little meaning.

The simplest formula of success for a direct offer is the cost of the mailing, plus the cost of fulfillment, subtracted from the amount of money you received. Even when you plug in this formula the additional credibility you get for your next mailing is not taken into account.

To take a guess at percentages - which is probably why you're reading this, 1 to 2 percent for an offer is usually considered good to excellent. When planning for success, figure out if you will break even at 1%. If not, better re-think your package, offer, product, or price. As important: is your offer hard or soft (do you ask for money with the order, or bill later?), and are you asking for an order (direct sale) or for an inquiry (lead generation with a two step selling process) so you can send a harder hitting longer package? Then, what is the lifetime value of the customer (will he order again and how often) to convert your mailing to be profitable. Most magazine publishers would be happy at .5% conversion to subscription rate; some of our own free-gift-with-inquiry offers have drawn 20 to 25 percent.

Which works better long or short copy?

Copy is king, but can be a real killer. Professionally drafted, well written long copy works the best. ButÉ

BUT - And like my aunt Mildred, this is a big butt; if the structure is incorrect, if it is not anything but the most intriguing, spellbinding, interesting writing; if the benefits are brought in too late, if the offer is too late or misplaced in all the clutter, or any of a million different bad things that can happen with long copy happen, there is a much greater possibility you will lose your reader, and as he drifts away your whole package will be trashed rather than read.

If poorly structured, or uninteresting, most people will place your expensive marketing material in the pile to read sometime between later and never, and it'll wind up just getting thrown out. Unless it's forceful, motivating, and drives readers to read the entire length and act now they will just file it in the round file without ever a second thought.

Sending a direct mail package is like owning a retail store: the longer you keep your potential customer stay in your store, the more likely he is to make a purchase. The longer the reader stays in your package, the more likely he is to send for your product. For example: Publishers Clearing House big magazine-stamp mailings. They hide the free prize stamps deep in the package - the longer you look for them the more likely you'll find something you like and place an order.

For the majority of offers, and packages, I recommend short copy. And I say that short copy is best because it works best in most packages. For the ingenious, and for selling higher priced products - if you can keep your customer tightly focused, your chance of sales is greater with long copy.

Should I use envelope teaser copy?

The first word on Teaser Copy is YES. If your mailing is commercial, sent bulk, and has the look of anything that is not a personal letter, use teaser copy. Yes, yes, yes.

But there is a grave danger using envelope teaser copy.

The big danger inherent of teaser copy: Don't be too specific. If your envelope copy is too specific and your teaser is not of interest to the largest segment of your audience, your offer to give away that new lawn mower to the first 10,000 respondents on the last page won't even be seen. The whole envelope, unopened, will be tossed out. It's the biggest danger in all of direct mail.

Teaser copy can make your package really work hard for you, and really work hard against you if not broadly appealing to all your audience. When in doubt, don't. Stick to tried and true openers: Free Offer Inside... New Pricing Enclosed... See What's New... Limited time offer - Please Open Immediately. They're boring, but still effective.

If your mailing piece is sent first class, chances are it will be opened even without teaser copy, especially if it has just your own name and address in the corner card (no company name). The only copy to enhance this (if you want to) is to say "FIRST CLASS MAIL" under the stamp area.

What is the BIGGEST mistake made in marketing?

This mistake is made by 99% of the companies marketing products or services. It's a mistake made by almost every firm I have worked with in the past 25 years. The biggest mistake in marketing - and not just direct marketing, any marketing - is by people who spend a lot of time, energy, and money on an ad or an inquiry generation program. When they receive the highly qualified lead it brings in, they send a brochure and a letter. At best, they call about a week later. When a sale is not immediate, they hang up, and never call back or send another letter. Then they say their campaign failed. What a mistake.

A single letter and brochure is not a campaign. A campaign is not a single effort of anything - why do you think they call it a campaign? A campaign is a sustained effort over time.

I recall some books quoting a face to face sales call costs $172. Most large sales are closed on the fifth contact. It always amazes me that otherwise intelligent people send a letter and brochure to their best prospects and call it quits when they don't respond with an immediate purchase.

Why would anyone think it's faster or easier to sell off a page or two than in person? Why should it take five in-person meetings to make a sale and only one contact in print. The biggest mistake made in marketing is to not contact a well qualified buyer who has expressed an interest in your product or service a second time with harder hitting additional marketing material or letters after the first mailing.

What is the biggest mistake you can make in a mailing.

Without a doubt, mailing to the wrong list will insure your mailing fails. Not enough research into which lists to test and mail to is the mistake. In direct marketing, the list IS your market. Do your homework by finding the absolute best possible list, then test. Additional time and thought here won't be wasted. No glitzy brochure, exceptional offer and great free gift will make a tuna canning factory purchase bottle caps. If you use a list broker, make him do his homework and EARN his commission by digging deep and buying the best.

What is the most important, effective element in a direct mail package?

The letter is unquestionably the most effective part of your direct mailing package. Some mailers have been successful using just a letter with no brochure, myself included. People receiving your package look at the brochure, but they read the letter. It is, after all, a personal communication from you just to them.

When brochures are printed everyone knows they are printed en mass. But even when you print a million letters, if done correctly you can make the recipient think he is one of just a few, or just the only one receiving it. Interesting: a personal communication from yourself to just a million or so people. Frankly, in my view a direct marketing letter is really a highly stylized ad designed to look like a letter. Do I refine every sentence, pour over the copy ad nausium, and call every line break just as I would for an ad? You better believe I do.

What are the best months to advertise in a magazine?

If your products make great gifts, October, November, and December are good months - if you don't get lost in the advertising clutter of all the Christmas products marketed at this time.

The magazine publishers don't tell you this part. If your products are not gift oriented, special issues and trade or seasonal specialities not withstanding, the good months are Jan, Feb, and Mar: most of the country is cold and people tend to stay in more and read. So magazine readership goes up, and so does your response. In June, July, and August, would you rather be inside reading a magazine, or out on the beach sipping a mint julep? And if by some wild chance you did bring your magazine to the beach, would you bring a pen and your checkbook to respond to an ad? Na. Response goes down in these months.

Some publishers may give you "pass along" counts of their readers, saying how every month readers give their magazines to a friend, who shares it with other friends, then they all pour over the magazines looking for things to buy. Don't pay much mind to the pass along readership figure. No doubt this was dreamed up by an over zealous advertising man who needed bigger circulation figures in a hurry.

Circulation audit studies aren't much help either. They stay flat all year - not an indication of readership, just circulation. Also keep in mind audit figures count how many magazines publishers mail, not how many people actually open a particular issue and read it.

What is the biggest mistake in creating an ad?

Nothing kills off response like not drafting the copy of an ad to a specific, written objective. You start writing all ads the same way: state the objective, then draft the copy to the objective. The objective is generally not to sell a product, the ad objective is to generate a response such as a phone call or if you are a retailer, a store visit.

All my ads have one or more of the same three objectives: call, write, or come in. If a customer doesn't do any of these, we didn't get his business, and the ad fails. All marketing communications should be written to an objective, and you should specifically ask your readers to respond to your objective somewhere in your ad.

What is the most common error in pricing products in mailings?

Assuming you know the best sales price for selling your product is the most common error. Sure, you've seen your product leap off the consumer shelf at $19.95. And you've seen catalogs reorder when they are selling them at a $29.95 list. But if you don't test the price in your direct mail packages you''re making a terrible mistake. A terrible, costly mistake.

The price of your product is determined by not only your product, but your mailing, the copy, your readers perception of the product's value, the construction of your offer, your free gift, and any of a multitude of things you've never thought of - including the wealth of your audience, and their willingness to send money through the mail. It can be as variable as what day of the week they get your piece, and depend on the individual need of each prospect, and it's perceived value in relation to satisfying this need.

While you may think you know the best price, you will never know or be sure until you test this variable. By testing you will find not only what price your product will sell the most, but at what price you make the maximum profit - which may be different. Let the marketplace set the price. Test.

How much ad money do I need, and do I need to set a budget for advertising?

The biggest fallacy is to say you are going to just add money to an advertising campaign and it will insure its success. Hard work, diligence, dedication, creativity, and devising an action plan working backward from a set of objectives at each step of the way will insure success.

Money is not the determinate in successfully marketing a product. If it was, New Coke would have been a tremendous success, as would have Euro-Disney, the Edsel, and just about every product IBM and Green Giant launched.

There is no correct formula to set an ad budget for a small firm, I don't care how many books you read, or who tells you there is. Proof of this: there are hundreds of formulas out there, they are all different.

What is the most effective tool in direct marketing?

Without a doubt, the most effective you can be in direct marketing is with a letter. For 32¢ you can gain and retain a busy executive's eye, hold the attention of a busy editor, and make a sales pitch anyone you write to will read.

You can slip by a secretary easily, attract favorable attention, create a good impression of your firm or product, and pre-sell or sell your product. It is the most effective you can be in marketing at any price. What a great value at 32¢. It's also the easiest to double your marketing effort by sending a second letter. Or tripling your effort for an additional 32¢. In 25 years of advertising and marketing service, the most effective campaign I have ever written was a series of letters. For a free copy of this, just drop me a note.