How To Use Direct Mail To Pull Double Digit Response Rates and Close Sales Fast: Go To The Extreme
By: Ernest Nicastro

Want a big boost in response, quick sales -- and maybe national publicity -- from your next direct marketing effort? Then go to the extreme. What do I mean by extreme? I mean unconventional, break the mold, out-of-the-box, reaches-out-and-grabs-people-by-the-lapels direct marketing.

When you take your direct marketing to the extreme many people will love it and a few will hate it. But you won’t be ignored. With a well thought out, well executed extreme marketing program it’s a good bet you’ll pull a response rate in the double digits -- and, close business relatively fast.

Extreme marketing: A case study

CSi Complete, is the leading provider of phone-based customer satisfaction indexing services to the collision repair industry. After getting their attention -- and a meeting -- with my own extreme marketing efforts they engaged Positive Response to help them put together their program.

John Webb, Vice President of Marketing for CSi reasoned this way, "It worked on me. So I figured it might work on somebody else. They [the mailers] are creative and impossible to ignore." What we decided on for CSi was a three-step campaign aimed at 300 collision repair businesses throughout the United States.

What I'm going to do now is share the pertinent details with you about this campaign. Then I'll give you a few ideas about how you can use a similar approach to generate leads and sales for your business. Ready? Good. Here we go.

Step one: Message In a Bottle

The first mailer was a Message In a Bottle, a 32-ounce squeeze water bottle like the type you might take to the gym. The outside of the bottle was printed with an eye-catching message in a bottle graphic along with their logo and complete contact information. Inside the bottle, which also served as the envelope, was a letter. The headline on the letter read, "Thirsty for more repair orders? Get ready to drink up!" Body copy talked about the benefits of using the firm's services. More importantly, we offered readers a free gift for scheduling a tele-meeting with CSi's Director of Sales, and 13 months of service for the price of 12 if they signed up by a specific date.

Step two: Bank bag mailing

A week later CSi sent out a second mailer. Mailer two was a 5.5" x 10.5" branded bank pouch imprinted with the phrase, "PUT MORE MONEY IN THE BANK." It arrived in a 9-by-12-inch full-window envelope with the imprinted side of the pouch facing the window. (Another attention-grabbing way of mailing this item is to tape down the zipper-pull and affix a mailing label and postage to the blank side.) This time the headline on the letter read: "How to write more repair orders while lowering your overhead and improving workplace performance. And you can take that to the bank!"

Body copy highlighted three key ways CSi Complete helps collision repair shops bank more profits and reiterated the two-pronged offer.

Step three: Trash can mailing

After each mailing CSi's telemarketing staff made follow-up phone calls to book tele-meetings. After two mailings and two phone calls a number of people had either booked a tele-meeting or indicated they were not a serious prospect. The remaining group, 208 companies, was sent a third and final mailing: a miniature trashcan mailed in a box.

Inside the trash can was a wadded up letter with the headline, "Can do? Yes! CSi Complete CAN help you run a more profitable business." An overline - copy positioned after the name and address but before the salutation - read in part:

"In case you've been throwing my letters into the trash, I wanted to do it for you this time.  But before you trash this, my final letter, consider the story of A. Pake Zane.  Why?  Because it's relevant."

(A. Pake Zane is a gentleman I read about on the internet. He saw a box of rocks that somebody had put out with the trash. He thought they looked interesting so he hauled them off. As it turns out they were ancient stone artifacts which he later sold for $1,000.) Body copy in this letter punched up the key selling points made in previous letters and once again highlighted the two-pronged offer.

Campaign Results

The campaign generated a healthy number of new accounts in a short period of time. All totaled, the company’s Director of Sales conducted 42 tele-meetings and closed sixteen new pieces of business. Better yet,  more than half of this business - nine accounts - closed within the first three months. What's more, we were able to generate several articles about the campaign in leading trade publications, including DM News, Target Marketing, Direct and Sales & Marketing Management.

How your business can use these mailers
The bottle, the bank bag and the trashcan is a tried and true trio of mailers that can be used by just about any business. For example, think about your business and three compelling benefits you consistently deliver to the marketplace. The headline or opening on your message in a bottle letter could be as easy as adding one or more of these benefits to the question that starts with, Thirsty for.... Another easily adaptable opening for a message in a bottle letter is this one:

“I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. First, the bad news: This Message in a Bottle won’t show you the way to buried treasures and untold wealth. Now for the good news: It will lead you to (insert your irresistible offer and/or compelling benefits here.)”

As for the bank bag, all you have to do is think about how your product or service generates an ROI or saves people money. Finally there’s the trashcan, what I call the “fish or cut bait” mailer. In my own marketing, and for clients, I’ve never seen the trashcan not be able to break down the resistance of at least a few more highly desirable prospects. Most people think it’s funny and while it’s not always a wise choice to use humor in direct mail, in this case it works.

You can also use the trashcan as a one-time mailer. For example, your headline or opener might read something like this:

“Since I know there’s a good chance you’re going to throw my letter in the trash I thought I’d go ahead and do it for you. But before you trash this letter for good, consider the story of A. Pake Zane.”

Suit the mailer to the target

These are just a few examples of how these three extreme marketing dimensional mailers can be put to work to generate leads and quick sales. As for other ideas, you are limited only by your imagination. But keep this thought in mind. You want to suit the mailer to the type of prospect you are targeting and the level of commitment or sale you may be seeking. In CSi's case we were targeting owners and principals at collision repair shops, which are primarily small businesses. And we weren't asking for a large upfront commitment.

On the other hand, if your market is senior executives at Fortune 500 companies and the value of an average sale for you is $50,000 you'll want to make your mailers more reflective of that fact. For example, at this level maybe your message in a bottle mailer is an engraved martini shaker mailed in a box. Inside your martini shaker is a letter with an opening along the lines of, "Time to shake things up?  Let us help you mix up a winning combination for... (the key benefits your company's product or service delivers.)"

Here's another high-end example: One successful campaign targeting CEOs revolved around a "secret agent" theme. Each prospect received a locked metal briefcase. An accompanying note directed the prospect to a Web site. At the web site, after entering a special code and reviewing some product and promotional information each CEO received the combination to the briefcase. Inside the briefcase was their reward, a handheld GPS unit. The program was highly successful.

Bigger impact means fewer mailers

Now let's talk about cost. Because you know that purchasing and mailing a trashcan or a martini shaker calls for a bigger investment than...rolling out your basic direct mail package in a number ten envelope. But keep this in mind. It's been said that the typical executive gets 175 pieces of mail a week. So if you're targeting business owners and upper level executives -- especially those with larger companies -- it's important that you make sure your mail will bust through the clutter and demand attention.

Otherwise your marketing effort may be a bust.

Also, because your response rates are going to be substantially higher, you won't have to mail as many pieces. Plus, in many cases people will hang on to your mailers put them to good use. So even if you don't make a sale right away your selling proposition will be reinforced every time the prospect sees your mailer. And then one day you'll get an order or close the account.

Key factors will impact your success
Attention is the first step in both the sales and advertising process and an extreme marketing program will attract attention. But direct marketing is a three-legged stool and in order to maximize your success you'll want to make sure all three legs of your stool are strong and sturdy. Those three legs are -

1. List - Make sure you send your mail to the right people at the right companies. Your list can account for up to 40% of your success.

2. Offer - Make sure you have an offer that gives the prospect a reason to talk with you or meet with you. And the offer isn't what a great job your product or service is going to do for your prospects. Your offer is the stimulus for action. It's the "deal." The quid pro quo. "I'll give you a free video, a special premium, a chance to win if you'll...."

    

   The use of a premium, the proverbial "free gift," has historically proven to be a very strong offer, pulling four times as many responses as typically is the case without a premium offer. And this is important. Because your offer can account for up to another 40% of your success.

3. Copy - If you invest good money using memorable, attention grabbing mailers...but give short shrift to the sales copy that goes with them, then all you have working for you is a GIMMICK. And a GIMMICK will only take you so far. So my advice is always this (and yes, I understand it's self-serving, but it's still good advice):

Unless you would hire yourself (or your staff member) out for pay as a professional direct response copywriter please DON'T write your own copy. The additional response you'll gain by using the services of a skilled, experienced professional will be well worth the investment. Especially when you consider that your copy accounts for up to 20% of your success.

Love and hate (but mostly love)

As I wrote earlier, when you take your marketing to the extreme a lot of people will love it and a few will hate it. But you won't be ignored. For instance, in a recent effort of my own I experienced both love and hate within a matter of hours. I received one phone call from an irritated sounding man who wanted his company removed from my mailing list. No problem I said. A couple of hours later I had another call from a gentleman with a big smile in his voice chuckling to me about "the really cool mailers you've been sending me." He scheduled an appointment.

Research has shown that well done extreme marketing much more often elicits the latter response than it does the former. In fact, in one extensive test program the response rate for an extreme marketing effort was 74% better than for that of a more conventional effort. To which I say, go forth and do likewise.

© 2006 Ernest Nicastro

About the author
Ernest Nicastro, a direct marketing consultant, copywriter and lead-generation specialist, heads up Positive Response, an award-winning marketing firm specializing in B-to-B marketing and lead-generation. For your FREE copy of the Positive Response Special Report, 77 Sure-Fire Marketing Tips Guaranteed To Boost Results, email Ernest (subject line Tips) at ENicastro@positiveresponse.com. Or, contact him by phone at 614.747.2256. For more information visit www.positiveresponse.com.

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