Why Boring Direct Mail Works
Howard J. Sewell, President, Connect Direct. Late in 2001, in the throes
of the anthrax scare, our agency produced a direct mail campaign for a software
client that tested two 6 x 9 packages - one, a plain white
envelope with nothing but the client's logo and return address, the second a
4-color design with teaser copy and a photo of the offer. At the time, the Direct
Marketing Association (DMA) was promoting a series of guidelines designed to promote security in the direct mail business and to ensure
consumers of the safety of direct mail campaigns. Included among the guidelines
were recommendations to "avoid using plain envelopes". Yet in our
test, the plain envelope outperformed its more colorful counterpart by a margin
of 57 percent. This example reinforced our
experience over the last decade testing a wide variety of direct mail formats
from traditional letter packages to self-mailers, oversized mailers, postcards,
and more. In all cases, and particularly for B2B clients, the less the package
looked like junk mail, the better it performed. Letter packages outperform
self-mailers consistently, by factors ranging from 25 to 300 percent. Teaser
copy (and any other attempt to have the envelope "break through the
clutter") routinely depresses response. Yes, boring works. And our
best hypothesis for why this is so involves the route that most business mail
takes to the recipient's desk. For B2B direct mail, the challenge is *not*
getting your package noticed or even getting it opened, but rather simply
getting it delivered. Particularly if you're targeting management-level
prospects in large corporations, the more colorful your package, the more
promotional your teaser copy, the less chance that mailer will make it through
the mail room, the executive secretary, and whatever other "screens"
exist to filter incoming mail. A final note about envelope
copy: you only have to scan the credit card solicitations that arrive at your
home every day to know that in some cases, teaser copy works. But financial
services companies have the luxury of multi-million piece campaigns that
involve dozens of different creative cells. If you test 40 different versions
of envelope copy, chances are at least one will increase response. But if your
campaign is more modest (as most B2B campaigns are), the chances are better
that a plain, boring envelope will win every time. Howard Sewell is president of Connect Direct, a full-service agency
that specializes in direct marketing for high-technology companies.
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