The 30 Timeless Direct Marketing Principles

from Internet

1. All customers are not created equal. Give or take a few percentage points, 80% of repeat business for goods and services will come from 20% of your customer base.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. Maximising direct mail success depends first on the lists you use, second on the offers you make, and third on the copy and graphics you create.
   
   
4. If, on a given list, "hotline" names don't work, the other list categories offer little opportunity for success.
   
   
5. Merge/purge names - those that appear on two or more lists - will outpull any single list from which these names have been extracted.
   
   
6. Direct response lists will almost always outpull compiled lists.
   
   
7. Overlays on lists (enhancements) such as life-style characteristics, income, education, age, marital status, and propensity to respond by mail or by phone will always improve response.
   
   
8. A follow-up to the same list within 50 days will pull 140 - 50% of the first mailing.
   
   
9. 'Yes/No" offers consistently produce more orders than offers that don't request "no" responses.
   
   
10. The "take rate" for negative-option offers will always outpull positive-option offers at least two to one.
    
    
11. Credit card privileges will outperform cash with order at least two to one.
    
    
12. Credit card privileges will increase the size of the average catalogue order by 20% or more.
    
    
13. Time limit offers, particularly those that give a specific date, outpull offers with no time limit practically every time.
    
    
14. Free gift offers, particularly where the gift appeals to self-interest, outpull discount offers consistently.
    
    
15. Sweepstakes, particularly in conjunction with impulse purchases, will increase order volume 55% or more.
    
    
16. 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.
    
    
17. People buy benefits, not features.
    
    
18. The longer you can keep someone reading your copy, the better your chances of success.
    
    
19. 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.
    
    
20. Self-mailers are cheaper to produce, but they practically never outpull envelope-enclosed letter mailings.
    
    
21. A pre-print of a forthcoming ad, accompanied by a letter and a response form, will outpull a post-print mailing package by 50% or more.
    
    
22. It is easier to increase the average dollar amount of an order than it is to increase percentage of response.
    
    
23. You will get far more new catalogue customers if you put your proven winners in the front pages of your catalogue.
    
    
24. Assuming items of similar appeal, you will always get a higher response rate from a 32- page catalogue than from a 24-page catalogue.
    
    
25. A new catalogue to a customer base will outpull cold lists by 400 - 800%.
    
    
26. A print ad with a bind-in card will outpull the same ad without a bind-in up to 600%.
    
    
27. A direct response, direct sale TV commercial of 120 seconds will outpull a 60-second direct response commercial better than two to one.
    
    
28. A TV support commercial will increase response from a newspaper insert up to 50%.
    
    
29. The closure rate from qualified leads can be from two to four times as effective as cold calls.
    
    
30. Telephone-generated leads are likely to close four to six times greater than mail-generated leads.

Reproduced with permission from "The Past, The Present and Future of Direct Marketing" by Bob Stone in "Beyond 2000: The Future of Direct Marketing" by Jerry I. Reitman (ed.) NTC Publishing Group.

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