Here are responses to some questions about creating effective direct mail and direct response advertising.

Q: We’ve tested self-mailers, but they never seem to work. What are we doing wrong?
A: As for what you’re doing wrong, I can’t possibly answer that question without seeing your self-mailers.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the format. I have created successful self-mailers for many clients, mostly for lead generation but also for direct sales. One of my clients uses self-mailers exclusively to sell books and videos to a business market.

A self-mailer works best when your audience is familiar with your company or your product category. The more you have to explain or the more credibility you have to build, the more likely a direct mail package will get a better response.

Q: What do you think of bingo cards?
A: Not much. Their purpose is to generate inquiries, but the quality is usually poor. When I see a bingo card, I circle dozens of numbers on a whim just to get some mail. I think that’s what most people do.

If you want inquiries, offer something free and get a response right off the page. Give your phone number. Include a coupon. Or add a bind-in response card. Bind-ins work like crazy.

Q: My boss wants to test an “invoice” format. It looks official, as if someone has ordered our product and we’re just billing for it. Is this legal?
A: It depends on how far you go to make it look official. You’re walking a thin line. Even if it’s legal, it may not be ethical. I’m seeing more and more of these. Some are just stripped-down, economical solicitations. But some are blatant trickery.

Ask yourself: if you have to dupe people to get them to buy your product, doesn’t that mean there is something wrong with your product? Why not sell something people want instead of snookering them into paying for something they don’t want?

Q: Are there any sure-fire direct mail techniques?
A: Nothing works all the time, but there are some techniques that seem universal in their effectiveness:

• A yes/no offer usually beats offers without a no option.
• A negative option offer usually beats a positive option offer.
• A credit card payment option usually beats cash.
• An offer with a time limit (especially with a specific date) usually beats an offer with no time limit.
• An offer with a free gift usually beats discount offers (especially when the gift closely matches your prospect’s self-interest).
• Sweepstakes usually increase order volume, especially for impulse items (though sweepstakes customers will seldom be loyal).
• Envelope packages usually beat self-mailers.

Q: Should headlines be short or long?
A: A long time ago, I interviewed for a job at a small advertising agency in Las Vegas. The owner considered himself a master advertiser and insisted that headlines should be seven words or shorter, without exception. I told him he was wrong and gave him several good examples of long headlines. He smiled, nodded, and showed me to the door.

I run into this short or long argument all the time with both letters and headlines. And it’s just nonsense. A headline should be as long as it has to be to get the reader interested in reading more. I’ve written headlines as short as one word and as long as 30 words or more. Loosen up. Focus on selling, not on formulas.

Q: Is the word “FREE” overused?
A: No. Offering free stuff is the one and only technique that will never, ever lose its effectiveness.

Q: How often should you update a direct mail package?
A: When it stops working or when you beat it with another package. You can test different offers, inserts, premiums, and other elements, but don’t mess with the basic package unless there’s a good reason.

Q: I hear lots of advice about direct mail success, but where’s the academic research to back it up? Everything I see seems entirely anecdotal.
A: There have been plenty of studies on reading habits but few on direct mail and, for example, how it’s opened, which pieces are read first, etc.

Frankly, I don’t know how you could run an academic study on such things. Unless people are in their natural environment, making decisions with their own money, you just won’t get good results. So the anecdotal evidence cited by most of us is as good as it gets. If there’s a rich guy out there who’s willing to fund an in-the-mail study and share the results with everyone, let me know.

However, in Sell It By Mail, James Lumley provides an overview of how people read and respond to mail. I don’t know how he arrived at this, but it’s an interesting analysis.

He begins by saying that only 15% to 20% of prospects will even consider reading your mail. So you’ve lost around eight out of ten prospects before your envelope even gets opened and its contents read. Those who do read will go through a three-stage decision process:

1. Your prospects scan for relevancy. At this point, you have 100% readership from those who do read your mail, about 20% of all those to whom you have mailed. These prospects will spend around 15 to 20 seconds opening and scanning the package. Assuming you have a good list, these people will have some preexisting interest in your offer.

The hot spots people scan include headlines, subheads, picture captions, signature, postscript, and the acceptance statement on your response device. People are not particularly savvy about direct mail, but they know where to get the scoop on your offer. And if they don’t see something that interests them, your mail goes into the trash.

2. Your prospects read for a reason to say no. If your readers are interested after scanning the hot spots, they will read more closely. At this stage you have 50% to 70% of all readers, which is around 10% to 12% of all those mailed. If they think it’s relevant, they are beginning to think about saying yes, but continue to read until they find a good reason to say no.

They will pay particular attention to charts, diagrams, tables, illustrations, bullet lists, and other summaries in order to get details quickly. In other words, most potential buyers are unsold by something in the package.

3. Potential buyers read to confirm a “yes” decision. By the time people get to body copy, they’re in the yes mode but not yet convinced. They are now looking for confirmation that this is a good decision.

At this point, you have 20 to 25% of all readers remaining or 4% to 6% of all mailed. Then, those who go on to say “yes” will be a fraction of this number, 2% or 1% or whatever your response rate.

***

Got a question? Send it to me.

One of the beauties of direct mail is that it comes with a long history of real-world testing and proven techniques.

This includes the “lift letter,” also called the lift note or publisher’s note.

The latter name hints at the origins of this technique. Back in the heyday of magazine subscription promotions, publishers often included a little extra letter in their direct mail solicitations.

They called it the publisher’s note because the message often came from the publisher.

Today, it’s usually referred to as the lift letter or lift note, since it has been adapted to work in a wide variety of direct mail packages for the purpose of lifting response.

In my Direct Marketing Glossary, I define a lift note like this: “Second, shorter letter in a direct mail package with a highly focused message. Generally signed by a different person.”

That sums up the characteristics of a lift letter pretty well:

• It’s smaller than the main letter and is generally folded. There’s a headline or teaser on the cover and a brief note inside.
• It’s usually signed by a different person. In most cases, it doesn’t make sense to have two letters signed by the same person.
• It focuses on one specific idea. It’s not a rehash or summary of the main letter.

In the photo above, you can see the cover of a lift letter for a direct mail package I wrote many years ago. I selected this example because it tells a story, which is something you don’t see too often in a second letter:

cover
Please – Don’t let this happen to you …

inside copy
Dear Friend,

Not long ago, while having lunch out, I met an elderly man in the booth next to me.

When he asked me about my business, I told him about The Entrepreneur Program and handed over the lessons I had in my briefcase.

He told me he had always wanted to be in business for himself. His whole life, he had tried to start one business or another, but always ended up going back to earning a paycheck.

He said, “I could never figure out what other guys knew that I didn’t. I just never knew what to do, how to do it, or when.”

Then, as he skimmed through the lessons, a sad expression came over his face. He looked up at me. “Are you telling me you put all this in this program of yours?”

I said, “Yes. Everything you need to know.”

He handed the lessons back to me and got up to leave. “I just didn’t know. If I’d had that, I could have…” He smiled and shook his head. Then he cashed his Social Security check, paid his bill, and walked out of the diner.

Right now, about 1 out of every 3 Americans like you are thinking of starting a business of their own. But only a fraction will try. And even fewer will succeed — merely because they didn’t have the simple know-how to turn their dream into a reality.

Please. Don’t let this happen to you. Don’t end up like that dear old man, looking back on a life that could have been.

Take the first step now. Ask for your FREE Starter Set.

Sincerely,
Benjamin Ordover
President

Looking at this lift letter now, I’d like to change a few things. But overall, it still looks pretty good.

While the main letter presents a sales pitch for an information product, this lift letter talks about the regret you could feel for passing up such a remarkable opportunity.

I got this idea from an old Gibson guitar manual I had in my youth. A letter in the front spoke about the regret I would feel if I didn’t apply myself and learn to play guitar. Since I didn’t apply myself, that message has haunted me ever since.

However, a lift letter can focus on any number of ideas. You can offer a bonus gift, answer possible objections, discuss a feature or benefit, present a customer testimonial or story, and so on.

Whatever the message, it should be important enough to justify a separate element in the direct mail package. Most importantly, the copy must focus tightly on that one idea. This is where most people go wrong by trying to summarize the entire package. Remember, divide and conquer.

Testing a lift letter is simple. Because it’s a separate piece, you can easily test with and without to gauge the difference in response.

If you’ve never tried a lift letter, test one in your next direct mail package. Then let me know if it lifted response for you.

If you’re like a lot of people I’ve talked to recently, your marketing is in a slump. And you’re fresh out of ideas.

This is especially true for direct mail. The down economy has frightened people out of testing anything new over the last couple of years.

In fact, some of the people calling me have said they all but stopped mailing. Now that things appear to be getting better, they’re scrambling for testing ideas.

I’ll give you the same advice I’ve been giving them:

1. Resurrect your control. Take your best mail piece and get it back in the mail. See if it still works. As I’ve argued in my Getting Response in a Down Economy white paper, none of the fundamentals have changed. So there’s at least a 50/50 chance that what worked before will work again.

2. Look at your results. If your control does well, test it once more just to make sure. Then ramp up your quantity. If your control dies, perform a direct mail autopsy.

These are your first logical steps. And you should do them before you do anything else.

Okay, but what if you’ve already done this and you’re looking for a way to break the mold and get a little crazy? What if you’re ready to start thinking outside the box?

Here are a few crazy direct mail ideas you may want to test this year:

Affix a sticky note to your outer envelope. The sticky note has been used for years inside direct mail packages, generally on the letter. But since 2005, the USPS has actually promoted using repositionable notes on outer envelopes. It’s a sure attention-grabber.

Insert a sheet of bubble wrap into your envelope. Traditionally, this has been used when there’s a fragile object enclosed. But I’ve seen a lot of mailers use this even when there’s nothing but paper inside. It gives an envelope thickness and arouses curiosity.

Test your direct mail package without the brochure. Yes, you read that right. Remove that beautiful, 4-color brochure and see what happens. Sometimes (but not always) a direct mail package will work as well or better without it. It puts more focus on the letter and reduces the printing costs and, possibly, the postage costs as well.

Print your postcard with a die cut. The problem with postcards is that everyone uses them and they all look alike. You need a way to stand out. So, if you run a pizza shop, maybe you show a pizza on your postcard with a die cut on the edge that looks like someone took a bite.

Try multiple letters. You could add a standard lift letter. Or you could enclose a second full-size letter that serves a specific purpose. A mailing I received from an animal rescue charity enclosed a sealed envelope with a second letter and photos of abused animals.

Try multiple reply forms. This one really sounds crazy, but is it? I consulted for a publisher some years ago who used several reply forms, each a different color, each with a variety of publications listed in random order. I thought they were nuts, but the reply forms worked. For lead generation, you could enclose separate “yes” and “no” reply cards. For multiple products, you could insert a small order form for each.

Try multiple envelope windows. Who says you can have only an address window? You could have another window revealing the offer. Another revealing a bonus. Direct mail master Rene Gnam taught me that there are no limits on windows. He once created an envelope with 7 windows! Windows visually and psychologically pull people inside the envelope.

Break up your catalog into lots of inserts. Spring Hill Nursery does this at least once each year. Each insert features a flower on the front and another on the  back. One sample package in my file includes no less than 30 inserts. It’s fun to flip through them. And selecting flowers is easy, because you can just set aside the flowers you want.

You’ll notice that all of these ideas follow basic mathematics. In each case, you add, subtract, multiply, or divide: Add a sticky note. Subtract your brochure. Multiply your reply forms. Divide your catalog.

This simple formula can lead you to many other “crazy” ideas as well. Just think about what you can add, subtract, multiply, or divide.

That’s not really all that crazy is it? What have you tested lately?

“There are no pictures.”

“The copy is too short.”

“It violates our brand guidelines.”

“It’s so damned ugly!”

These are just a few of the objections you’ll hear if you ever suggest testing an “official” direct mail piece like the one shown here.

However, to those who know better, official-looking mailers can be pure gold.

I received this piece recently and had one of those “Oh, you got me” moments.

Since I specialize in direct mail, I’ve seen every trick in the book. And 99.44% of the time I can spot a marketing piece a mile away no matter how well-crafted.

But it was the end of the day. I was tired. And the direct mail part of my brain had shut down. So when I saw it in the mail pile, I responded like an ordinary human and opened it.

After all, it appears to be from my bank’s mortgage department, so it’s important, right? And it’s talking about my mortgage and a government plan to modify the loan. If I were anyone else, I would have called to see what this was all about and, of course, would have gotten a sales pitch.

But my brain’s direct mail lobe switched on and I realized this was just a solicitation for refinancing.

I’ll sidestep the ethical question here about whether this sort of mailer is good or bad. The issue is why does it work? And believe me, official mailers can work quite well.

First, and most obviously, it’s cheap. This faux snap pack is just a small piece of paper, printed and personalized on both sides in black ink, folded and glued, with perforated strips on the sides. The cheaper the mailer, the more likely it will be to turn a profit.

Second, it doesn’t look like advertising. It flies right past the junk mail radar most people have. Mail generally falls into a few categories: bills, publications, correspondence, and ad mail. By making ad mail look like it belongs to another category, in this case correspondence, it gets sorted into the “open it” pile.

This example is a snap pack, or appears to be, where you have to rip off the sides to see what’s printed inside. The type is plain, the sort you see on government publications or financial documents. And the back is covered with a gray security pattern, supposedly to prevent anyone from seeing the confidential information inside.

Third, it doesn’t read like advertising. The copy doesn’t use typical marketing language. It’s full of official verbiage, such as “Notice,” “Form: DK008-75964,” “confirm eligibility,” and “Loss Mitigation.” It’s pure gobbledygook, but it’s all part of setting the right tone.

Official-looking mail will never win any awards. And a surprising number of people assume it’s just too schlocky to work. But like so many things in direct marketing, looks can be deceiving. Sometimes ugly direct mail works precisely because it’s ugly.

The down economy has killed a lot of the fun and creativity of direct mail in the last few years.

But if my phone is any indication (the plastic is melting from all the calls), the economy is getting ready to roar back to life.

So I thought I’d dive into my big stack of stuff and pull out some envelope samples to give you a little inspiration and maybe help you summon the courage to test something beyond yet another postcard or cheap self-mailer.

These are in no particular order. I just rifled through my sample file and pulled out anything that struck my fancy today. I’ve made each envelope sample as big as I could, so the proportions are not accurate here.

Here’s a classic direct mail envelope for a recipe book. Lots of color and excitement with a token showing through a window to encourage involvement.

Trust me. Direct mail is coming back and it won’t be long before you decide to start testing bigger and more exciting packages again. Many of my clients are already doing it. So don’t be caught eating your competitor’s dust.

One of the primary advantages of using direct mail is your ability to “divide and conquer.”

Your letter delivers a personal message and makes an offer. Your brochure demonstrates features and dramatizes benefits. Your order form calls for action and eases response.

Each piece performs a specific function and, because each is dedicated to that function, does a better job than a mailer attempting to do everything simultaneously.

With that in mind, consider what else you might want to accomplish in your direct mail package. Then consider testing an appropriate insert or involvement device that can boost response enough to offset the additional cost.

Here are just a handful of ideas:

Encourage involvement with a quiz or checklist. Is your offer relevant to your prospect? You can prove that it is by including a simple quiz: “Do you qualify for our 80% discount on life insurance? Take this quiz and find out.” Or a checklist: “Here are 25 ways our investment course can turn you into a millionaire in 10 years.”

Make your offer tangible with a check or coupon. If you’re offering $25.00 off, enclose a coupon or simulated check worth $25.00 and instructions for returning it with an order. If you can, offer a real check that provides an instant reward or even activates a service when cashed. A check can be personalized and show through an envelope window.

Dramatize your offer with stamps or stickers. If you have several offers, configurations, or options, you can print each on a stamp and ask the recipient to affix one to the order form. If you have a simple offer you want to highlight, you can print it on a sticker which must be lifted and transferred to the order form. Stamps and stickers are highly involving and make it clear that some action is required.

Answer objections or highlight a benefit with a lift letter. The lift letter is the dean of all inserts. It is usually a short message signed by someone of higher authority than the letter signer. It presents a second point of view, meets objections, adds credibility, highlights benefits, etc. Often it’s folded with “Read this only if you’ve decided not to order …” or words to that effect on the outside.

Increase credibility with a testimonial insert. Testimonials often work best when you separate them as a stand-alone piece, which increases the “bandwagon effect.” You can also have a benefit headline to introduce them, such as “Over 3 million satisfied customers agree, a Wahoo Widget lasts so long, it’s the last widget you’ll ever have to buy.”

Prove your superiority with a sample. Let’s say you’re selling a coat or jacket to outdoor enthusiasts which you claim will withstand all manner of torture. It’s waterproof, fireproof, rip-proof, stain proof. Enclose a one-inch square of the fabric attached to a small card with instructions for testing the fabric. That way, your prospect can see it is everything you say it is.

Emphasize exclusivity with a membership card. People like to belong. If you can structure your offer as joining a club or organization, you can send a membership card printed on plastic or heavy paper. You can even personalize it, provide contact information, and list benefits. This transforms a mere transaction into something more beneficial and relevant to prospects.

Reinforce your guarantee with a merchandise return label. It’s one thing to say a dissatisfied customer can return a product. It’s another to actually provide a prepaid return label in advance. It shows how confident you are in your product and lowers perceived risk. One way to do this is to combine a label with a lift note explaining the label and how there’s no risk or obligation for responding.

Announce last-minute news with a buckslip. You don’t have to redo a whole package just because one small thing changes. Enclose a brightly-colored slip touting a new feature, a premium, deadline, or special offer. Of course, there doesn’t have to be a change to use this technique. You can use it anytime to highlight something or test an offer or premium.

Everyone likes pretty things. In nearly every situation, people prefer pretty over ugly.

Pretty people tend to earn more. Pretty houses are worth more. Pretty almost always beats ugly, except when it comes to direct mail.

In the world of direct mail marketing, ugly has a big advantage.

To the right is an example of what most people would call an “ugly” direct mail piece. It’s a simple solicitation about refinancing my house. And I’ve received it three or more times now.

The envelope is a standard white Monarch with a canceled stamp and what appears to be a handwritten address.

The letter inside is a short handwritten note with a business card stapled to the top. The letter is personalized with my name.

The envelope is one-color. The letter and business card are two-color, printed on one side. The whole package is small and cheap. No bleeds, die cuts, photos, or frills.

I love it.

Yes, to me this ugly piece of direct mail is absolutely beautiful. Why? Because there is no pretense of cleverness. This piece seeks to generate phone calls and it does absolutely nothing else.

In case you can’t read the letter text, here it is:

November 26, 2010

Dear Mr. Rieck,

I feel I can help you reduce your monthly payments by refinancing you into a lower fixed rate Conventional or FHA mortgage.

I wrote to you twice before but never received your reply. Please give me a call.

Yours Truly,

Tracy Kindall

That’s it. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

This is lead generation, so it doesn’t have to say much. There’s nothing complicated to explain. The letter just promises to lower my payments and presents a call to action.

The piece is not without its flaws. The stamp cancellation indicates Baltimore, MD while the return address is Medina, OH. So we know this isn’t really a personal letter from the sender.

In addition, while the font is quite good, you can tell that every letter looks the same. Every “o” is the same as every other “o,” for example. But I doubt too many people would notice such things.

Overall, this is a well-conceived mailing. The first time I received it, I opened it before realizing that it was “ad mail” and not a personal letter. I smiled and mumbled to myself, “You got me.” So if it got me to open it, with my years of direct mail experience, I know it’s getting ordinary home owners to open it as well.

So why would an ugly direct mail piece like this work? Because it looks real. It looks personal, like something a real person would send. It doesn’t trigger the junk mail alert radar built into everyone’s brain. It doesn’t pummel the reader with cliche copy. It gets to the point instantly.

Ugly direct mail works because there’s no design to get in the way. This has been proven through experience. I’ve even seen the results of head-to-head ugly vs. pretty tests, my own and my clients’.

My advice: never be afraid to test ugly direct mail. It’s not a branding medium. It’s a direct response medium. Do what works to get response.

What about you? Have you ever tested ugly vs. pretty mail?

Ah, the good old days.

Just a few years ago, I could count on receiving a mailbox-full of direct mail nearly every day, including the crown jewel of direct marketing, the BIG direct mail piece.

Thick #10′s, fat 6×9′s, and beefy 9×12′s once stood atop the mountain of attention-grabbing communication.

But then came hard days for the publishing industry, higher postal and printing costs, the rise of electronic media, and a faltering economy that dried up the stream of direct mail.

Today, the mail delivers anemic postcards, cheap fliers, and the occasional #10 envelope with a short letter inside. And it’s made many wonder if direct mail has gone the way of the dinosaur.

Industry pundits have been sounding the death knell for direct mail. Though, those pundits have generally been young and directly involved with social media, email, and other electronic media. They’ve had no love for, or experience with, traditional media and shed no tears for its assumed extinction.

But as I’ve been saying for some time, the reports of direct mail’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

Despite all the new media opportunities, people are beginning to realize that Twitter, Facebook, email, blogs, and other innovations are not delivering the stunning results promised. In fact, many are now waking up from their dream of a paperless marketing world and asking, “Where are the sales?”

What people are discovering is that traditional media, including direct mail, still work. That includes the big direct mail piece.

I’ll admit that it may be hard to justify mailing big in today’s economy when, often, sales aren’t there regardless of the medium. But I’m starting to see more and more big direct mail pieces.

The Ballantine Blog features one in a recent video case study. It’s a big, honkin’, poly-wrapped 9×12 subscriber acquisition mailing with 6 components: a 4-page letter, 17×22 brochure, backer/reply, 2 lift notes, and BRE.

And this isn’t the only large package I’ve seen lately. I’ve received a thick #10 envelope package from Planner Pads, a 36-page magalog from Jerry Baker, an 8.5×11 poly-wrap from Highlights for Children, and a traditional donor package from Smile Train. Plus I’m seeing a significant increase in larger credit card and financial mailings.

Compared to a few years ago, it’s just a trickle. But the big packages seem to be making a comeback. And I know why:

• Lower volume means less competition in the mailbox, which often translates to higher response.
• A mail stream full of dinky formats makes larger formats stand out.
• Larger formats provide more real estate for copy, the driver in any direct mail campaign.
• The tsunami of electronic communications overwhelms people. By contrast, a direct mail piece allows people to relax and focus on one idea for a few minutes.
• After years of sparse mail, those big packages seem novel now. They let you zig while everyone else zags.

I’m not down on all the new media. But I have a large client base and I’ve talked to many of them about their marketing. They’re not saying they’re switching to new media. They’re just saying they’re holding tight for the time being.

So as the economy recovers from its coma, all those pent up dollars are not going to fly into electronic media. My bet is, they’re going back into traditional, proven media, such as direct mail.

And today’s trickle of big packages will turn into a wave of  longer letters, bigger brochures, and larger formats. Why? Because it works.

Is it time for you to test a big direct mail piece?

Direct mail is a powerful and effective medium. But it’s a cruel world out there. And sometimes, your mail dies a gruesome death.

Maybe you don’t get the response you want. Perhaps the piece doesn’t get delivered correctly. Or fickle fate steps in and, for no apparent reason, murders a mailer you’ve successfully used a dozen times.

It’s enough to make you sick to your stomach. But rather than just shrug and accept it, there are steps you can take to discover the cause of death.

Here’s how to perform a “direct mail autopsy” in 6 simple steps:

1. Analyze the results. You can’t fix a problem until you know what the problem is. So take a stiff drink and sit down with the numbers for a while.

Is the response rate low or non-existent? If it’s a two-step, is the problem on the front end or the back end? How about your return or cancellation rate? What about net profit? Crunch your numbers every which way to see if you can hone in on the problem.

2. Double check essential elements. A mailing I did for one client bombed so badly they called me in a panic to say they were getting no responses at all. Not one. I calmly asked to see a sample piece as mailed and noticed something weird about the ZIP barcode.

Somehow their addressing software had inverted the bars so that the short bars printed tall and the tall bars printed short. With the ZIP wrong, no one received the piece. Fortunately, it was an easy fix.

Sometimes you can get so caught up in the creative aspects of a direct mail package that you forget to check things like those barcodes, addresses, phone numbers, website URLs, and other standard information. But you need to check them every time.

Always get extra samples and go over them with a fine-toothed comb. Fill out the form, call the number, go to the website, check the entire response process.

3. Compare it to successful pieces. Take a hard look at your offer. Has it changed? Weigh the information included. Is there more or less? Are you speaking about your product in a different way? Are you using a different format than before? Are you asking people to reply in a different way? Does the design look wrong for what you’re selling?

Technically, if you’re testing correctly, you will change only one element at a time, and you’ll always know why something fails or succeeds. If you’re not testing that way, and your piece bombs … well, now you know why it’s a mistake.

4. Look for the “muleta.” That’s the name of the little red cape bullfighters use. They wave it around in one hand to distract the bull from the sword they hold in the other hand. In a direct mail piece, the muleta is something that distracts potential customers from your offer, message, or product.

One direct mail piece I saw recently featured a teaser on the envelope that read, “Stop monkeying around.” A big picture showed a goofy-looking monkey holding a wrench. This piece was selling a set of high-end automotive tools, but the verbal and visual puns functioned as a muleta, confusing people. Jokes don’t sell.

5. Be honest about your product. I once created a direct mail package for a well-known publisher, who told me the mailing bombed. But when I asked for details, I learned that the response rate doubled, the net profit doubled, and most of the numbers went up. However, the cancellation rate rose to around 30 percent and that didn’t go over well with management.

I gently told them it probably indicated a product-related problem — more people were trying the product because of my mailing but a lot of them didn’t like it. The publishing company didn’t accept that explanation, didn’t want to change the product, and didn’t seem to care that they were making twice as much money, even including cancellations.

Apparently, they preferred to make less money so they didn’t have to deal with the embarrassment of admitting they had a bad product. Good grief.

6. Hire a professional. I know that sounds self-serving, but few business owners have the skill to create good direct mail. And often they don’t have anyone on staff who can do it either. Sometimes when they farm out the project, they hire someone local and cheap. Big mistake.

A failure may mean you need to bring in a hired gun to get your direct mail on track.

If budget is a problem, many consultants offer an analysis service that can identify problems in a direct mail piece and provide potential solutions. It’s not as good as having a direct mail piece created from scratch by a pro, but it’s a smart compromise.

Don’t feel too bad if you have a direct mailing that’s dead on arrival.

To change metaphors, everyone remembers that Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs. But few remember that he also had 1,330 strike outs. That’s because people generally remember successes and forget failures.

So when you have a mailing that strikes out, don’t panic. Just figure out your problem, fix it, and step up to the plate again.

I won’t keep you in suspense. The answer is “Yes!” It is indeed smart to use direct mail for online sales.

There was a time not that many years ago when the “World Wide Web” was a mysterious and magical place. Gurus proclaimed that everything would soon change.

Other media, including direct mail and nearly anything in print, would die a rapid death. We were destined to live in a “paperless” world. “Brick and mortar” stores would transform into “virtual” businesses.

Well, like most idealistic visions, this scenario hasn’t played out as expected. The Web has not killed real-world stores. We shuffle more paper than ever before. And direct mail, while certainly affected by the rise of online media, isn’t even close to death. In many ways, it’s stronger and more effective than ever.

People are so annoyed and suspicious of unsolicited email, they now consider direct mail to be a relatively trustworthy medium. And while SEO, social marketing, pay-per-click, and other online strategies are powerful tools, they tend to reach only those actively searching for a product like yours.

This is why smart online entrepreneurs understand that the medium is not the business. The bigger you want your business to be, the more media you must use to expand your reach. And there is no other medium that gives you more reach than good old fashioned direct mail.

If a prospect has money to spend, they have an address. And if they have an address, you can reach them with direct mail.

So how can you use direct mail to build your online business?

Advertise specials and sales. GoDaddy is a good example. They use all the available online marketing media to draw more business for their hosting and domain services, but also use direct mail to push a constant stream of time-limited offers.

Build your relationship with customers. Online relationships are fragile, often fickle. But direct mail exists in the real world. You can hold it in your hand and bring it into your home. It can make your business more tangible and personal.

Reach a wider circle of prospects. Not everyone is glued to their computer. Direct mail helps you speak to people who want your products and services but live outside your core online audience.

Send samples. It’s hard to judge the quality of coffee online. But you can mail a sample for people to smell and taste. If they like it, and assuming it’s not available at the grocery store, they’re happy to buy it online. They may buy it online even if it is available at the local grocery if you give them a good reason, such as special savings or automatic shipping.

Use email to support direct mail and vice versa. If you’re sending a direct mail piece, use your email list to give people a timely heads up. Or you can use direct mail to encourage people to opt in to quickly build your online list. Media integration builds synergy, helping your media do more together than they might do if used separately.