Finding out more: This set of articles has been developed by Hamilton House Mailings Ltd. If you would like to discuss any of the factors here, or indeed any other issue relating to marketing via post, email and websites, please do call 01536 399 000.
If you would like to know more about Hamilton House does, please do take a look at www.hamilton-house.com Alternatively you can email your question to Stephen@hamilton-house.com There is no charge and no obligation
Terminology: throughout much of this site we use the phrase “direct mail” to include both postal advertising, and email advertising.
List of factors:
- 70% Theory – most people don’t throw away or hit delete immediately
- Age and illustration
- Announcements - an overused form of advertising that never works.
- Be personal - write your direct mail to one person
- Benefits - as every marketing book says - sell benefits
- Brochures - the half way house between leaflet and catalogue - underused but highly valuable
- Catalogues - how to stop them being stuck on the shelf
- Centre ground - where so much direct mail is directed - but never the best place to be
- Citations - important to quote good comments and recommendations, but that is never a reason to lead with them. The come at the end
- Colour - you may believe colour is always good, but often it isn't
- Colour - the effectiveness of individual colours in advertisements
- Combining 1 - direct mail plus telephoning
- Combining 2 - email plus direct mail
- Commitment of reader - how committed the reader is affects how you have to write
- Common sense in advertising and why it doesn’t work
- Competitors – knowing all about them
- Copywriting - what makes the biggest difference to your response rate?
- Cover letters - they don't always work - it depends how you write them
- Credibility - does your customer believe you?
- Discounting
- The emotional response to advertising
- Design - don't just ask the designer for a design
- Differentiate advert - make your advert different from that of your rivals
- Differentiate product - sell the product in a different way from the way your rivals sell similar products
- Do people make buying decisions rationally?
- Elaboration likelihood theory - it sounds complex but it isn't and it has a huge impact on how your direct mail works.
- Email vs direct mail. Report on research into attitudes of those who receive direct mail and email.
- Emotions - using emotion to sell through direct mail - one of the five key ways.
- English – does it make sense - a lot of direct mail is written in a strange variation of the language, and it doesn't work
- Envelopes paper or poly - paper is more expensive - but is it worth it?
- Envelopes printing on - is there a benefit of printing on the envelope?
- Excitement
- Exclamation marks, trade marks and other marks - stop using them!!!!!
- Fear of advertising
- Features - still the way most people write, but normally not a good idea.
- Flyers - the simplest form of direct mail, and still effective
- Focus Zone - when the reader picks up a piece of direct mail, what does he or she see first? Probably not what you expect.
- Fonts - does the font make a difference?
- Fonts - the problem of suddenly changing fonts and adding bold
- Grabby image theory - another key theory, and if you get it wrong, your whole direct mail piece will collapse.
- Guile and poetry - getting people to read your advertisements requires guile and poetry rather than the language of the high street
- Headline - the key issue above all others. Get the headline wrong and no one will read anything
- Hierarchy of Needs theory (Maslow's theory) - what need are you meeting?
- Humour in direct mail - get it right and it works a dream. But it is hard to write.
- Individuals – writing to one not many
- Landing pages and why testing it is so important
- Layout and design
- Length of copy - the short vs long argument
- Lifestyle of your readership - if you don't understand them, you can't sell to them
- Mail lists – checking their validity
- Number of inserts - the wholly unexpected effects of Interference
- One at a time
- Order form - use it as a way to check how each leaflet is selling
- Overload Theory - how much to send out
- Personalisation - everyone assumes mailmerge helps. But often it does not.
- The psychology of advertising - how the way the brain works can help in the art of persuasion.
- Postage class - does it make any difference which class of postage you use?
- Price - selling on price. Yes it works, but at a huge cost.
- PS in sales letters - second only in importance to the headline
- Questionnaires - how to write them, what affects response rates.
- Questions – asking interesting questions
- Salutations in sales letters - do they matter
- Same email twice? Good or not good?
- Short paragraphs - why they help
- Short sentences - another key factor. You must use them.
- Signatures in sales letters - helpful or irrelevant?
- Slogans - everyone wants to use them, but there may be no point.
- Subliminal techniques in email and direct mail advertising
- Taking time to produce resources - writing a sales letter takes much longer than you might expect.
- Text, illustration and the motivation of the reader.
- Titles and names on the envelope. What difference does it make?
- Using the subconscious to your advantage
- Voice - an explanation of the theory that small changes to the text can make enormous differences to the response rates.
- When to mail - every industry has its timetable
- XZ Theory - one of the earliest theories to emerge in this research and one of the most important.
Themes
The themes are taken from the complete list of factors - we have simply gathered them together into obvious groupings.
Design
Writing
Psychology
Back to basics
If you want to go back to the very start then you might want take a look at our three basic laws (click on Start Here if you didn't get to read them).
Contact:
Email: Stephen@Hamilton-house.com
Phone: 01536 399 000
Main web site: www.hamilton-house.com |
