Direct Creative Blog

Defending yourself against the sales lead killers

Dean Rieck — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:16:10 +0000

A couple of years ago, I was at a party where the host challenged guests to remove a cork from the inside of a wine bottle. It was quite a challenge, the host proclaimed.

One by one, people tried and failed to remove the cork. Then the host began explaining the tricky and complex solution, and people were impressed. However, the host was unable to remove the cork after 15 minutes of fiddling.

Growing impatient, I grabbed the bottle and asked the host if he really wanted the cork out of the bottle. He said yes. So I broke the bottle and handed him the cork. He wasn’t happy with that solution and said I “cheated.” Apparently it just wasn’t clever enough, even though it worked instantly.

Too often, this is the way it is with sales lead generation. Generating leads isn’t really that difficult, but people seem to be forever looking for complex solutions to simple problems. I call these the “lead killers,” because that’s exactly what they do — they kill leads.

The best defense against these killers is to just do what works. The simpler, the better. Here are a few examples.

Make an offer to get a response. Sort a “duh” suggestion, but you’d be shocked at how many businesses make things hard on themselves by trying to generate leads without an offer or by trying to close the sale in the lead piece.

Lead generation is a multistep process. First you get a response in order to identify your leads. Then you start the process of making a sale to those leads. Take just one step at a time. The best and simplest way to stay on track is to offer something free and focus your lead generator on that free item.

Sack the silly offers. Some businesses understand the idea of offering a freebie, but they offer things like pens or calendars or mouse pads. Those have wide appeal and will generate a big response, but they complicate things because they won’t help identify the good leads.

Your freebie must relate to your product or service so it generates quality leads, not just quantity leads. If you’re a tax preparer, for example, you could offer a special report titled “7 Easy Ways to Cut This Year’s Taxes by 35% or more.”

Avoid “look at me” brochures. You might be in love with your business. But your customers aren’t. They’re only interested in their own needs and wants. So sending them chest-beating literature is a mistake.

Don’t go on at length about your corporate mission in flowery, high-sounding language. Don’t recount the history of your business minute-by-minute for the last 20 years. And don’t display heroic photos of your management team climbing a mountain. Focus on the offer you’re making. Stick to basic benefits. Keep it simple and talk to prospects about what they care about.

Tease, don’t tell. Telling too much isn’t just a lead killer; it’s more like business enemy number one. The goal is just to get a response. That’s it. And to get a response, you have to generate curiosity. Providing too much information up front not only makes more work for you, it kills curiosity.

That’s not to say your lead piece has to be small or include few words, only that it shouldn’t reveal so much that you satisfy your prospect’s curiosity too soon. Remember the vaudeville rule: Always leave them wanting more.

Include a reply card even if you want calls. By including nothing but a phone number as a response option, you’re only appealing to the hottest prospects. Occasionally, that works fine. But generally, you want to scoop up warm and lukewarm leads as well.

After all, that’s the point of lead generation — to identify who has an interest so you can focus your sales efforts, not to simply grab the low-hanging fruit. You can easily double or triple your response with a simple, little reply card.

Just send a letter. I know that sounds too simple to work. But it does. In fact, a letter with a reply card or fax-back sheet may be all you need. You can test including other literature, but often the lone letter works far better.

I just recently tested this with one of my clients, and the simple letter on stock letterhead with a reply card and BRE beat packages with the same letter plus additional inserts.

Try self-mailers and postcards. I use these all the time with fantastic results. They encourage passalongs to decision-makers. They’re easier and more self-contained than multipiece mailers. And they can dramatically cut costs compared to envelope direct mail packages.

Sometimes, their economy can even outperform everything else, including personal letters. Postcards are especially nifty for simple lead offers or for directing someone to a website or physical store. It doesn’t get any simpler than a postcard.

Here’s a warning: Just as breaking the bottle didn’t ingratiate me with my host, trying to implement some of these suggestions may not ingratiate you with some of your business associates. Many people don’t want simple. They want impressive or complex, no matter the outcome.

It’s likely that by boosting results you can change their minds. But if not, don’t say I didn’t tell you.

Using a coin trick to get your mail opened

Dean Rieck — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:00:14 +0000

Remember when people used to send direct mail packages with lots of stuff packed inside?

That was back in the good old days, before the economy went bust and everyone panicked and started mailing little postcards, invoice mailers, and fliers that all look alike.

One of my favorite old-fashioned direct mail package techniques was the “coin trick.” You attach a penny or nickel to an insert and use a window envelope to let recipients see the coin inside.

It’s irresistible. Very few people can bring themselves to throw away a real coin.

I guess no one told The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society about the “new” economy because they just sent me a package with a coin trick. Specifically, they use a 3-window envelope, showing the mailing address, return address, and a shiny nickel.

The envelope features a photo of a child holding a doll and a handwritten teaser that reads,”How can 5¢ save a child’s life?”

If for no other reason, you have to open the envelope to retrieve the nickel. Once you’re inside, you see personalized holiday address and gift labels, front and back on a single sheet. It feels weighty, thus valuable.

The top part features the nickel and a donation form asking you to return the nickel along with a generous gift to save the lives of children with blood cancer. It’s personalized and mentions your home town.

The center part shows a short, personalized letter tying the nickel to the message of how nickels can add up when you invest them in cancer research. The bottom part and the entire back of the sheet holds the address and gift labels.

The only other piece is the return envelope, so despite the weighty feel of the package, it’s fairly economical. Will I keep the coin? Yes. Will I use the labels? Yes. Does it make me want to donate? Absolutely.

I would have never opened the envelope but for the nickel. That little coin trick, as old-fashioned as it might seem, can still work magic.

Getting people to open your envelope is job one. And at the very least, that shiny nickel will get the job done.

Have you ever use a coin trick? How about other tricks?

Write the perfect sales letter in 14 proven steps

Dean Rieck — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:00:48 +0000

Fairfax Cone once said, “Advertising is what you do when you can’t go see somebody. That’s all it is.”

He was so right.

There is no better way to sell something than in-person. Talking to someone face-to-face lets you have a personal conversation and get a feel for what someone wants and what it will take to make a deal.

However, since it’s not possible to have a personal chat with the billions of potential consumers out there, we use advertising media as a stand-in. And of all the traditional formats, sales letters come closest to the personal conversation you want to have.

A well-written sales letter remains one of the most effective means of speaking to people, sparking an emotional response, and motivating them to buy. It’s simple, personal, easy-to-read, and effective.

It’s hard to explain what makes a good sales letter. It’s sort of like good art: you just know it when you see it.

However, there are some basic steps for writing a sales letter. Here are 14 of them.

1. Consider using a headline or Johnson Box. Not every letter will have these elements, but they are ideal for telegraphing your offer or a clear benefit statement. Just remember that they make your letter look less personal and more like advertising.

2. Use an appropriate salutation. Personalization is best when you can do it. Otherwise, use a salutation that connects with the reader as closely as possible. “Dear Friend” is safe but general. “Dear Cat Lover” is more targeted and specific. If you’re mailing to a business audience, use the occupational or professional title.

3. Make your first sentence short and attention-grabbing. Don’t waste time with a long windup before your pitch. Involve the reader immediately. Make a startling statement. Start an interesting story. Hit an emotional hot button. Or just state the offer and get to the point. This last approach is often the best tactic and offers the least room for error. The following sentences can expand on this first sentence to pull the reader into the body copy. Here are 30 sales letter openers for inspiration.

4. Present your offer on page one. If you don’t give your offer in the headline or first sentence, you should put it somewhere early in the letter text. The better your offer, the earlier you should mention it. Be clear and specific about what your reader will get by responding.

5. End the first page in the middle of a sentence. Whether it’s curiosity or an urge for closure, cutting a sentence in two at the bottom of a page helps encourage the reader to turn the page, finish the sentence, and keep reading. You can also use this technique on successive pages.

6. Keep your copy on track. You’re not writing a novel, but your main idea should be a thread that weaves through the whole letter. At minimum, present your theme on page one and end on a similar note on the last page.

7. Make the body of the letter work hard. Once you’ve grabbed your reader’s attention and generated interest in your offer, follow immediately with benefits, details, word pictures, testimonials, and proofs to eliminate doubt.

8. Call for action. Quickly restate the main points of your offer and ask for the response you want clearly and directly. Restate information on involvement devices, motivators, incentives, etc. Restate the big benefit.

9. Make response easy and clear. How should the reader respond? Give your toll-free number. Explain the ordering process one-two-three.

10. Guarantee your offer. Assure the reader that there is no risk. State your guarantee in strong terms. This should directly follow your call to action.

11. Stress urgency. Why should the reader respond now? Is it a limited-time offer? Are supplies limited? Are prices going up soon? Give a logical, sensible, and honest reason why this is the best time to respond. And be clear about what will happen if the reader does not respond. Mention the lost opportunity or the consequences.

12. End the letter when you’re finished. Just as your letter shouldn’t have a long windup at the beginning, it shouldn’t prattle on at the end. End a letter as bluntly as it began. Often this is a quick restatement of your instructions for responding or a simple “thank you.”

13. Have the right person sign your letter. Your letter should be signed by the highest-authority person available or by someone relevant to the reader. Ideally, the signature should be in blue ink. (Hint: Consider how the signature looks. Does it suggest confidence and believability, or is it shaky and uncertain?)

14. Use your P.S. effectively. The postscript is one of the most-read parts of a letter. It should present an important message, a prime benefit, a restatement of the offer, a reminder of the deadline, a sweetener, or whatever you feel is most effective in this prime spot. Some call the P.S. a headline at the end of the letter. Ideally, it should be short, about one to three lines.

Got it? Okay, now here’s why everything I’ve just told you could be wrong.

These 14 steps can help you craft a solid sales letter. But they won’t necessarily turn you into a master copywriter. The fact is, great letters often break the rules. Why? Because there are no rules, just rules of thumb.

For example, if you ask me about the first sentence of a sales letter, I’ll swear to you it must be short. That’s always the way I start a sales letter. But I’ve seen great letters with a long opening sentence.

I’ve also seen great letters with no P.S. Letters that seem to do their best to hide the offer. Letters that never break a sentence at the bottom of the page. I’ve even seen letters that don’t include a clear call to action.

Here’s my point: It’s easy to analyze a sales letter after it’s written. In most letters, you’ll see most, if not all, the above 14 steps. But just as great art can’t be paint-by-numbers, great sales letters can’t be formulaic.

Sometimes you have to break the rules or make up your own rules. Sometimes you have to take a chance. A letter is a conversation, and no conversation ever follows a set path. That’s why great sales people don’t follow a script. They just know how to go with the flow and arrive where they want to be … with a signed order.

Follow the 14 steps. But remember that you’re not conducting a lecture. In a good sales letter, you’re having a conversation. A sales letter is what you write when you can’t go talk to someone.

Are there simple ways to reduce your direct mail costs?

Dean Rieck — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:16:17 +0000

Smart direct mailers should always look for ways to cut costs. But in today’s economic climate, cutting costs is a must.

Paper, postage, and printing are all on the rise. Prospects have become more choosy about responding to offers. And marketing departments are being asked to tighten their belts and stretch their dollars.

Here are three simple tips for trimming costs.

Talk to your printer. You may have a well-designed direct mail piece, but is it efficiently produced? Can you make small changes in the layout that will allow you to use more of the paper stock and create less waste? Are you using an odd shape that is making production or postage more expensive? Is the piece printed on unnecessarily expensive stock or stock that requires a special order and extra freight charges?

Consider the following video from my friends at Ballantine Corporation.

You should also look at the piece from a creative point of view. Do you really need UV coating or die cuts? Can you eliminate a piece or combine two pieces to lower weight and cut postage? Would a lighter weight stock work as well with your design? Often features you like don’t affect results and are unnecessary.

Consider digital printing. There was a time when you had to print on a four-color press if you wanted full color. But today, digital presses are common. No, they won’t give you art book quality printing, but the final product looks good for most commercial purposes and is generally faster and cheaper.

Digital presses also let you do personalization and versioning for more targeted and relevant messages. If that doesn’t cut your cost directly, it can certainly improve your return on investment with potentially better response.

Test into smaller formats. Testing is something you should be doing anyway, but there is a tendency for many businesses to cut testing programs when the budget gets tight. That’s a mistake. When times are good, you should be testing. When times are tough, you MUST be testing.

What should you test to reduce costs? Try removing your brochure. Sometimes it doesn’t affect response if you have a strong letter. Try turning a 6” x 9” package into a #10. If you’re generating leads, have you tried a postcard or flyer? Could you remove an order form and send customers to a Web form? Does your letter have to be 8 pages or would it work just as well at 6 pages? There’s almost always something you can cut, shrink, or modify.

Remember that while costs are an issue now, there’s an upside: There could be less competition in the mailbox. Some mailers are reporting higher response because competitors have scaled back. The key is to never give up. Print smart and keep testing and you’re likely to see good results.

Simple direct mail offers can work like crazy

Dean Rieck — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:00:36 +0000

What do you do when you have a good product and a loyal audience? You give them a simple, straightforward offer. That’s what Spring Hill Nurseries did with this big 6” x 11.5” envelope package.

Ferns are popular because they grow in moist or shady areas of the garden where few other plants will grow. They blend with any kind of plant and provide beautiful color and texture where it’s needed most.

I’m a customer of Spring Hill, and I’ve purchased ferns from them before, so I’m on their list and they know I like ferns. Do they need to clobber me over the head with fern details. No. They just need to catch me at the right time with the right offer.

They start on the outer envelope with a big photo of their ferns. The teaser copy is dead simple: “Ferns. Over 50% OFF!” Not clever, but it doesn’t need to be. The back of the envelope shows the six types of ferns offered with the headline “Beautify any shady spot instantly and save over 50%!”

Inside, Spring Hill uses smart production techniques to create a wide, personalized letter and order form. The two pieces are printed on one 11” x 17” sheet then cut apart. This lets them use the headline “Delicate, graceful, elegant and soothing are just some of the words that describe our Hardy Fern Collection, Mr. Rieck.”

The package also includes a small gatefold brochure. Large photos, big type, and simple copy help the reader visualize the ferns in his or her own garden. The offer is everywhere you look.

This is not what you would call an “award-winning” direct mail package. There’s little of what most people would consider clever copy or design. But Spring Hill is a no-nonsense seller of flowers and plants. Their customers don’t want clever advertising, they want beautiful gardens and good deals. So the focus is always on the promise of carefree beauty and dollar savings.

One nice technique demonstrates this straightforward marketing approach. On the back of the business reply envelope, an area most mailers leave blank, they offer to send a free catalog to two friends if you supply their name and address.

Clever? No. Smart. You bet. I’m hip to their selling techniques and this package still made me want to order ferns. That’s good direct mail.

Why “selective attention” can kill your ads

Dean Rieck — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:00:39 +0000

Last week, I asked you to take a test to see if you’re a word nerd. This week, I have another test for you. And it’s a doozy.

The concept is “selective attention.” I don’t want to spoil it, so watch the video below. Don’t cheat. You’ll miss the point entirely if you don’t follow directions and see the results for yourself.

Done?

If you followed the directions and tried to count the number of times the people in white shirts passed the basketball, there’s a 50/50 chance you’re amazed right now.

How could you possibly miss the gorilla?

The first time I watched the video, I thought it was a joke. There is no way I could have missed something so obvious. But I watched it again, and sure enough, there it was.

This is the result of selective attention. In law enforcement and military training, they call it tunnel vision. Police officers involved in a physical confrontation, for example, find that their attention is so selective, they can vividly remember certain details, such as the sneakers of a criminal, but miss other details, such as a car accident that happens right in front of them at the same time.

The idea of selective attention is simple: people select to pay attention to some things and not others. That’s because the brain can only take in so much information at once. The more focused a person is on one thing, the less that person pays attention to something else.

Consider how a magician uses this idea to misdirect you. While he’s waving his right hand, you don’t notice what he’s doing with his left.

Selective attention affects advertising messages as well. An obvious example: clever TV ads that seek to entertain you, then throw in few fleeting references or images of the product. Afterward, you may remember the entertaining part of the ad, but not recall the product.

Any time you try to be too clever, inject irrelevant concepts, or take the focus away from the product, you invoke selective attention. Your reader or viewer may miss what may seem painfully obvious to you.

The answer is just as obvious.

Keep your message simple and direct. Focus on the product and its benefits. Avoid overly conceptual or entertaining ideas, clever visuals, or self-indulgent wordplay.

In other words, focus on what’s relevant to assure your prospect sees it.

If you want to learn more about selective attention, visit The Invisible Gorilla.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

No related posts.

Are you a word nerd? Take the test.

Dean Rieck — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:00:11 +0000

While skimming a recent issue of Advertising Age, I ran across an article called If you’re creating ads, odds are you’re talking to yourself.

And it presents yet more evidence that ad writers and other advertising professionals are disconnected from the people they’re creating ads for.

I’ve been discussing this since 1997 when I wrote about how ad writers don’t relate to ads in the same way as ordinary people.

The Ad Age article talks about research on behavior-based segmentation performed by Xyte Technologies. They tested people in marketing and advertising (including people in creative, media, and research) and found that they’re “word nerds.” They like playing with words and rely on intuition (rather than data) to craft message.

Trouble is, only 18.5% of the general population fall into that category. Ads that appeal to word nerds don’t do so well with the other 81.5% of the population, most of whom are highly practical people and respond to tangible benefits.

I’m not the least bit shocked by this. Whether the details of this research are accurate or not, it certainly reconfirms my notion that a lot of people in the marketing and advertising world are creating messages that appeal to themselves rather than real-world buyers.

Are you a word nerd? Take this test and find out.

Here are 5 questions from the test. Read and choose A or B for each question.

Question 1:

(A) Are you comfortable with emotional people and easily empathize with them?
OR
(B) Do emotional people make you uncomfortable and have difficulty empathizing with them?

Question 2:

(A) Do you tend to use feeling words to describe things that you like?
OR
(B) Do you use a rational/logical approach to making decisions?

Question 3:

(A) Do people seek you out for warmth and nurturing?
OR
(B) Are you more comfortable with things or objects than people’s feelings?

Question 4:

(A) Do you feel it is more important to be tactful than truthful?
OR
(B) Do you consider it more important to be truthful than tactful?

Question 5:

(A) Do you enjoy the power of words by writing and speaking?
OR
(B) Do you enjoy using your hands to make, assemble or fix things?

Results: According to this study, if you chose A at least 3 out of 5 times, odds are you are a word nerd.

For the record, while I agree that a lot of ad writers don’t know how to write ads people can relate to, I don’t put much faith in the specifics of such tests. I think the way to tell if you’re an effective ad writer is to look at the sales reports.

But then, people in the ad world are always trying to find inferential data rather than data from actual results. Maybe it’s because the people doing the research are word nerds too, and they’re just as disconnected as the people they’re studying.

Interestingly, I am not a word nerd according to this test. How about you?

Soup, sand, and rancid cheese: The craziest direct mail test in history

Customer retention: plugging the leaky pool

Dean Rieck — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:00:37 +0000

In my last post, I talked about the nightmare of customer defections and showed you a dramatic calculation that demonstrated the profit you sacrifice when they leave you.

If you lose one customer every day who spends just $5 a week, you’re out $94,900 a year ($5 x 52 weeks x 365 days = $94,900)! If you’re a service business, you’re losing 15-20 percent of your customers every year. So the actual loss is huge and growing persistently over time.

At the heart of customer defection is lack of satisfaction. This isn’t the same as dissatisfaction, which means an active dislike for something. Lack of satisfaction is simply the absence of any good reason for a customer to stick around.

Do you remember that U.S. News and World Report statistic I gave you? A whopping 91 percent of customers who leave do so simply because they are not satisfied.

How do you satisfy customers and retain their business? Any number of ways.

But since all relationships are based on good communication, that’s a commonsense place to start. Specifically, this means asking questions, staying in touch, and being generous.

Step 1: Ask Questions

People almost never tell you when they like something and only occasionally complain when they don’t. So the only way you’ll find out what you’re doing right or wrong is to ask your customers.

Ask directly with a short questionnaire, a comment card in your fulfillment, a phone survey, a feedback form on your website, or whatever it takes to get answers about the good and bad of your customers’ experiences.

Keep the lines of communication open with a dedicated, toll-free customer service phone line and a special customer service email address. Feature this information in your store and catalog; on your website; and in invoices, emails, and all customer communications.

Staff your customer service department with well-trained people. When you get complaints, solve problems promptly, give customers something for their trouble, and remind them that you care.

And, since people move, get married, have kids, and constantly change, you must keep your database fresh. Only when you know the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your customers’ purchases will you be able to fix problems and improve service.

Step 2: Stay in Touch

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. However, in marketing, familiarity makes the heart grow fonder.

A simple, inexpensive newsletter may be all you need to maintain a friendly familiarity with your customers. It can include information about new products and services, company policies, helpful articles, and anything that may be interesting, relevant, and useful. Just make sure it isn’t a bunch of thinly veiled advertisements. People will see right through that.

Letters and emails are great ways to thank customers for their business and reward them with special offers and inside information. For your top customers, consider a personal phone call just to say thank you.

Of course, a regular stream of offers also works, though you’ll lose a little of the bonding effect of more personal contacts. If you can tailor your offers to a customer’s buying habits, this can be effective. Some online companies, such as Amazon.com, do this quite well, combining targeted offers with a personal feel.

Step 3: Be Generous

People are willing to pay for quality. But don’t nickel and dime them to death.

A while back, I bought a relatively expensive computer. At the conclusion of an otherwise topnotch sales experience, the salesclerk asked if I would like a mouse pad. I said, “Yes,” only to have the clerk say, “Okay, that’s three bucks.”

It was a nice mouse pad, but after spending thousands of dollars for a computer, monitor, and several accessories, that extra $3 felt like an insult.

Little acts of unexpected generosity can go a long way toward cementing your relationship with customers. Free floor mats with a car, a free DVD with a DVD player, a free light bulb with a lamp, free advice with completed tax returns. Little extras make your customers feel that you’re a friend, not just another company out for a buck.

For more information on “generous” marketing, read Harnessing the Power of Kindness in my Learning Center.

In the end, business is more than sales. It’s about relationships. If you develop and nurture those relationships through a commonsense communication program, you can reduce customer defections, increase customer retention, and boost your profits dramatically.

Customer defection: the leaky pool nightmare

Dean Rieck — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:00:38 +0000

Many years ago, I lived next door to a guy named Wayne. Wayne had a pool. It was his pride and joy.

Trouble was, Wayne’s pool leaked. Slowly and persistently. We knew where the water was going, because the area under my deck was muddy all the time. But we didn’t know where the leak was.

All Wayne could do was run a hose to the pool to constantly replenish the water that disappeared. His water bills were outrageous.

It’s almost funny, until you realize that if you run a business, you’re in the same situation as poor Wayne. Your customers are leaking away. Slowly and persistently.

You probably don’t know where the leak is. And the cost of replenishing your pool of customers is almost certainly more than you want to spend.

We’re talking about “customer defection.”

If you’re a typical service business, you’re losing 15 to 20 percent of your customers every year. And according to a study in Harvard Business Review, ” … customer defections have a surprisingly powerful impact on the bottom line. They can have more to do with a service company’s profits than scale, market share, unit costs, and many other factors usually associated with competitive advantage.”

Customer defection is a nightmare because it significantly affects your bottom line.

Let’s say you lose just one customer who spends a mere $5 a week. That means you lose $260 a year. Not much. But if you lose one such customer every day, you’re looking at an annual loss of $94,900 by the end of just one year ($5 x 52 weeks x 365 days = $94,900). And the loss is progressive.

The question is, why do customers defect? According to a U.S. News and World Report article, out of every 100 customers who jump ship, 9 do so because they move, 9 because they go to the competition, 14 because of poorly handled complaints, and 68 for no special reason.

In other words, 91 percent of your lost customers leave simply because they aren’t satisfied.

How do I arrive at that? Well, you aren’t satisfying people if they go to the competition (that’s 9 percent). You aren’t satisfying people if they feel their complaints aren’t handled properly (that’s another 14 percent). And you’re not satisfying those who leave for “no special reason” because, while not specifically unhappy, they haven’t been given a good reason to stick around (that’s the final 68 percent for a total of 91 percent).

Okay, that’s all well and good. But how much can you actually add to profits by retaining customers? According to the Harvard Business Review study I mentioned earlier, you can increase profits up to 100 percent by retaining just 5 percent more customers! The calculation here is more complicated, but it comes down to the “lifetime value” concept.

At first, a customer does a little business with you. Over time, as the customer’s confidence in you increases, the customer’s purchases increase in number and value.

And as purchases rise, your operating costs decline, since your experience with that customer makes the relationship more efficient. Plus, the word-of-mouth advertising the customer does for you brings in many more customers.

The figures work a little differently for each business, but they’re impressive.

One auto service chain increased profits 30 percent by retaining an additional 5 percent of its customers. An insurance company increased profits by 50 percent. And a bank boosted profits by 85 percent.

That’s why they say, “Your best prospects are your own customers.” It’s not just that they’re easier to sell to. It’s that they add far more to your bottom line than new customers.

Okay, so let’s summarize …

Customer defections reduce profit. Customers defect because they aren’t satisfied. Therefore, if you satisfy your customers, you’ll reduce defections and increase profits.

But how can you satisfy customers? Specifically what can you do to make customers so happy they would never think about doing business anyplace else?

Whole books have been written about customer satisfaction, and there are a million things you can do. But the place to start is with simple customer communications. By knowing more about your customers, letting them know more about you, and giving them ongoing special attention, you can plug the leak in your pool of customers and start increasing profits today.

Don’t worry. Starting and maintaining a customer communication program isn’t as hard or expensive as it sounds.

In the next post, I’ll give you a simple, three-step customer communication program that you can tailor to your own needs and budget.

Stay tuned.

Santa’s secrets of marketing success

How to sell products with direct mail inserts

Dean Rieck — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:21:15 +0000

There’s a certain pecking order in the world of direct mail projects.

At the top are bulky magalogs and thick direct mail envelope packages with all the bells and whistles.

At the bottom are the lowly workhorses, such as postcards and inserts.

The direct mail insert shown here in the photo comes from a box of plants I ordered from Spring Hill Nursery.

Technically, it’s called a fulfillment insert, meaning it’s an advertisement inserted into the package you receive when you order something by mail.

It’s not the sort of thing anyone wins awards for. In fact, some copywriters and designers look down their nose at humble inserts like this. For them, it’s sort of like the hillbilly member of the family you never talk about and hope won’t show up at weddings or funerals to embarrass you.

That attitude is unfortunate, because direct mail inserts can generate tons of extra income for both advertisers and the companies that offer to include the inserts in their mail or packaging.

Direct mail inserts (specifically fulfillment inserts) give you three big advantages:

1) People are more likely to buy something just after they’ve bought something else.

2) The marketing message can be delivered less expensively than with a solo mailing.

3) You can target your message to proven buyers of highly specific types of products.

The elements of an effective direct mail insert

Let’s take a quick look at what goes into creating a direct mail insert. Click here to open a pdf of the full insert.

This particular insert aims to generate inquiries for a compost tumbler, which is a simple device gardeners use to create fertilizer, or “brown gold,” from grass clippings, leaves, kitchen garbage, and other waste.

If you’re not into gardening, you’ll just have to trust me that free fertilizer is a powerful selling point.

As you can see, the insert resembles a small self-mailer. It’s similar to take-ones you see in grocery stores. It’s printed on a small sheet, folded, and includes a perforated reply card.

The insert focuses on one product and one offer. In this case, the offer is free information about the product and how to buy it. Lead generation or inquiry offers like this tend to work better for inserts since less selling is involved than if you had to make people part with their money immediately.

The more something costs, the more copy you need to make the sale. So lead and inquiry generation work better with smaller formats such as inserts.

As for copy and design, the elements should be familiar.

A strong headline, lots of copy, photos showing the product in action, features and benefits, testimonials (in this case just one), and a guarantee. The primary call to action is to mail the reply card, though options include phone and website.

The insert also includes a “one-two-three” panel which shows how easy the product is to use and proves the promise of creating compost in just 14 days. Most backyard gardeners want things to be easy, so this adds a nice touch.

There’s nothing mysterious or difficult about direct mail inserts. As always, you just have to remember how prospects receive and interact with the piece. A fulfillment insert arrives with a product you ordered, often along with other inserts, packing slip, invoice, and additional items.

Your copy and design must be clear and straightforward to momentarily pull someone’s attention from the nifty product they’ve just received.

Let me know about your experience with direct mail inserts or your thoughts about how to make them work.