Monthly Archives: November 2008

Nov18

40 Creative Ideas That Work – Part 1

Posted on November 18, 2008 by Lois Geller

Here’s 40 ideas that work! How do we know? We’ve tested them many times and every one of these ideas will help you boost response.

1. Know who you are! A unique brand personality makes you stand out, makes people like you, makes them want to do business with you.

2. Include some kind of letter. Even a fake “on-page” letter in a self-mailer or catalog. Packages with letters outperform letter-less mail 99% of the time. Even a boring, self-serving letter can be better than no letter. A well-written, 1 to 1 letter with some personality in it is better than anything. Get a pro to help you. It’s important.

3. Letter layout is almost as important as copy. Make it look inviting, easy to read. Use short sentences, short paragraphs, indents, double space between paragraphs, cross-heads, Johnson boxes, and a signature that looks like a human being wrote it. Not something like this: Marilyn Monroe

4. Make the signature any color you want, as long as it’s blue. It makes the letter look like it was signed by a real human being.

5. A lot of people read the P.S. before they get into the letter. It’s a great place for your single best point.

Read the rest of this entry →

40 Creative Ideas That Work – Part 2

Posted on November 17, 2008 by Lois Geller

40 Creative Ideas That Work – Part 2

Continued…

20. Your best list is your current customer file. Your second best list is probably past customers. They’re your greatest direct marketing assets. Use them! But make sure the files are clean and up-to-date.

21. Direct response lists are always your best bet for outside lists. Someone who’s bought something through the mail is more likely to buy from you … especially if they’re recent buyers.

22. Have you ever tried a compiled list? Of course. Have you ever tried slanting the creative to the compiled list? Probably not. Names on most compiled lists have one thing in common (lawyers, accountants, soccer Moms, etc.). Whatever that one thing is, try reflecting it in your creative.

23. Use a great list broker. Ask for references, and describe your goals, package and target market. These are bright, dedicated people who want to do a great job so you’ll use them again and again.

24. Try to make your direct mail look and sound like it was touched by a human being. Customers and prospects tend to respond better when they feel like they are interacting with a real person.

25. Make sure all of your communications have the same brand personality. Read the rest of this entry →

The Joy of Email Marketing

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Lois Geller

The Joy of Email Marketing

Direct mail has always been the work horse of direct marketers. Over the years, we have mailed all kinds of offers for our clients, from insurance to books, and coins, and stamps, and vitamins and health newsletters, spa visits, and even home cleaning products.

Now, clients are calling us for email marketing programs. I encourage them not to use email for acquisition, only for existing customers or opt-ins.

We’ve done many programs now, and one for a cookie and gift company out of Atlanta. The first few efforts were amazing, as I could see (virtually) how many people were clicking through, and the numbers that were ordering on the spot. And, we could see the spikes in our client’s phone room. We also measured the numbers who were opting out.

It was like a fast-paced, warped speed direct mail program.

Our lists were kept separately and we could instantly see which list was performing the best, an which lists needed more or richer offers.

So, now all of our clients are asking if they can replace direct mail with email efforts. You know the answer, in direct marketing, we always test, test, test. Some offers will always do best in direct mail, especially now when mailboxes are really pretty empty. And, after all, you can’t hold an email catalog in your hand, or read a long offer in email, or see a product in a glamour shot.

What are your thoughts? Let me know.

There are more than 86,000 seconds in every day….

Posted on November 11, 2008 by Lois Geller

There are more than 86,000 seconds in every day….

Days fly by for me, in a frenzy of activities….from direct marketing for our clients, my social media network, my real network of friends, my new books (I’m writing), my columns and all the mundane things I do, like paying bills, returning calls, and handling the challenges of board membership.

In the course of doing all of these activities, I let others slip by. One of those things that I’m always fighting with myself about is Organization. When I was a kid, my mom said I had a disorganized mind and that was why I was so creative. Now, there’s no excuse. Read the rest of this entry →

I love the art prints, and where is the offer?

Posted on November 11, 2008 by Lois Geller

I love the art prints, and where is the offer?

bookpix

Recently a client came to our offices to tell us all about his fabulous line of art books. They were great, and we enjoyed seeing the art, before it was published. He mentioned the thickness of the books, the special art historian who was the author, and so on.

Then I asked him the big question: what is your offer? His reply was, “I don’t need an offer”, and “these books are high quality and stand on their own”.

I explained to him that in direct marketing you always need an offer, or you’re just selling retail in the mail. The offer answers the customer’s questions of “what’s in it for me”, and it is really the closer for the sale. Read the rest of this entry →

Amy Africa, the Internet Guru, and an Amazing Friend, Knows That “The Only Thing You Have To Fear is Fear Itself”

Posted on November 7, 2008 by Lois Geller

Amy Africa, the Internet Guru, and an Amazing Friend, Knows That “The Only Thing You Have To Fear is Fear Itself”

A few years back, I was invited to speak at Vermont/New Hampshire Direct Marketing Days.I wanted to be there but I didn’t want to travel there because the only flight was a toy airplane from LaGuardia.

But Larry Chait, my brilliant friend and mentor, had asked me to come, so I had to say yes and once I did the event’s organizer, Amy Africa, started calling.

She’s more than pleasant but Amy has one of those moose-and-mountain-country voices that suggests she might shoot and skin an unsatisfactory speaker and nail the hide to the barn door.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to Vermont. She sent gifts with notes. Cheese’s note read “All the big cheeses will be here.” On the Maple syrup was “This event will be sweet.”

I steeled myself and got into the little plane. We took off tentatively, cruised at wave height over Long Island Sound and at tree height over Connecticut and Massachusetts, then swooped and dived and yawed and banged and clanged our way into New Hampshire which, from where I sat, looked like Tibet.

Somehow the 15-year old pilot weaved us around mountains and along valleys and, suddenly, there we were. And it was worth it.

The VT/NH Direct Marketing (Circus Circus) event was outstanding: great speakers, circus acts, terrific food, and lots of laughs, all thanks to Amy and her volunteers. They had a raffle kind of draw and I won a rototiller which isn’t much use in a 46th Street apartment so it got “regifted” to a delighted Vermonter.

Amy and I kept in touch for a while; then, as she got more and more important in the Internet world and my agency business started hopping, the letters and emails slowed and we lost touch except for running across each other occasionally at conferences like the DMA’s in New Orleans and Inc. Magazine’s in Scottsdale.

Then Amy saw my face in Fortune Small Business magazine above an article I’d written about the challenges of moving my agency from New York to Florida.

Amy emailed that she was happy to see my smiling (and touched up) face and we started corresponding regularly again and got together in New York last December. At dinner, she asked if I was going to the 2008 DMA Convention in Las Vegas. “No,” I said, “and I’d like to because I’ve never been to Las Vegas.” Read the rest of this entry →

The Joy of … checks flying in every day.

Posted on November 5, 2008 by Lois Geller

The Joy of … checks flying in every day.

Ah, those were the days! One of my first DM jobs was at Greystone Press, a continuity publisher. We sold books in sets, one at a time, and billed customers monthly. Titles included the International Encyclopedia of Art, the International Illustrated Encyclopedia of Decorating. We also had gardening sets (that I wrote), and how-to handbooks.

And every day, the good ol’ USPS delivered mailbags filled with orders and, more important, checks. This was before normal everyday people had credit cards.

Orders and checks actually came right to our office in Manhattan and a bunch of people in the fulfillment area worked quickly to give us flash counts, daily, sometimes hourly.

It was exciting to hear that thousands of orders had come in, with checks, or that there were fewer cancellations than expected.

It was a joy to sit in the back room watching the fulfillment people outserting checks and writing up bank deposit slips. I loved finding out which of my programs was working best and which were lagging.

Now I call clients to ask how a mailing we did is faring out in the market and they often just don’t know yet… and maybe they’ll never know. “The data guy hasn’t put the numbers together, but there seems to be a lift, which may not be because of your mailing because so many responses are unidentifiable .” Which you wouldn’t think possible, would you? Read the rest of this entry →