Bob Stone's 30 Timeless Direct Marketing Principles
Bob Stone was a king among direct marketing gurus. Over his long career, he identified a handful of direct marketing principles that proved true again and again.
- All customers are not created equal. Give or take a few percentage points, 80 percent of repeat business for goods and services will come from 20 percent of your customer base.
- The most important order you ever get from a customer is the second order. Why? Because a two-time buyer is at least twice as likely to buy again as a one-time buyer.
- Maximizing direct mail success depends first upon the lists you use, second upon the offers you make, and third upon the copy and graphics you create.
- If, on a given list, "hotline" names don't work, the other list categories offer little opportunity for success.
- Merge/purge names — those that appear on two or more lists — will outpull any single list from which these names have been extracted.
- Direct response lists will almost always outpull compiled lists.
- Overlays on lists (enhancements), such as lifestyle characteristics, income, education, age, marital status, and propensity to respond by mail or phone will always improve response.
- A follow-up to the same list within 30 days will pull 40 to 50 percent of the first mailing.
- "Yes/No" offers consistently produce more orders than offers that don't request "No" responses.
- The "take rate" for negative option offers will always outpull positive option offers at least two to one.
- Credit card privileges will out-perform cash with order at least two to one.
- Credit card privileges will increase the size of the average catalog order by 20 percent, or more.
- Time limit offers, particularly those which give a specific date, outpull offers with no time limit practically every time.
- Free gift offers, particularly where the gift appeals to self-interest, outpull discount offers consistently.
- Sweepstakes, particularly in conjunction with impulse purchases, will increase order volume 35 percent, or more.
- You will collect far more money in a fund-raising effort if you ask for a specific amount from a purchaser. Likewise, you will collect more money if the appeal is tied to a specific project.
- People buy benefits, not features.
- The longer you can keep someone reading your copy, the better your chances of success.
- The timing and frequency of renewal letters is vital. But I can report nothing but failure over a period of 40 years in attempts to hype renewals with "improved copy." I've concluded that the "product" — the magazine, for example — is the factor in making a renewal decision.
- Self-mailers are cheaper to produce, but they practically never outpull envelope enclosed letter mailings.
- A pre-print of a forthcoming ad, accompanied by a letter and response form, will outpull a post-print mailing package by 50 percent, or more.
- It is easier to increase the average dollar amount of an order than it is to increase percentage of response.
- You will get far more new catalog customers if you put your proven winners in the front pages of your catalog.
- Assuming items of similar appeal, you will always get a higher response rate from a 32-page catalog than from a 24-page catalog.
- A new catalog to a catalog customer base will outpull cold lists by 400 to 800 percent.
- A print ad with a bind-in card will outpull the same ad without a bind-in up to 600 percent.
- A direct response, direct sale TV commercial of 120-seconds will outpull a 60-second direct response commercial better than two to one.
- A TV support commercial will increase response from a newspaper insert up to 50 percent.
- The closure rate from qualified leads can be two to four times as effective as cold calls.
- Telephone-generated leads are likely to close four to six times greater than mail-generated leads.
Home Services FAQ Bio Kudos Samples Contact
Learning Center Site Map Blog Products
Copyright © Direct Creative. All Rights Reserved.
