Offer strategies that power up your email

Today’s customers rarely seem to open emails unless there’s some kind  of offer being made.  That’s actually a good thing to know—newsworthiness creates appeal.  If the headline on the newspaper or the teaser on the magazine says “nothing new here” people won’t pick it  up from the newsstands.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that just because it’s from  YOU, and just because they opted in, they will be interested in what  you have to say, unless there is something in it for them to check it  out. E-newsletters are a good way to approach a non-offer email  but even then an offer will pique the attention of a jaded or overloaded  recipient. But what about the offer itself?  How can you make it work  for you, aside from getting the reader to open up your email?

Well, first, you must decide what you want them to do.

1. Get them to register at your site. Experts agree: the reason to send an email is to get people to come to  your site to order.  A standalone email that doesn’t generate action is  useless.  And the next step after getting someone to visit is to get  them to register and provide a little more information so you can  actually start sending them offers they’d be interested in, which will  substantially improve your relationship with your customer.  Hey, it  shows you’re listening! So if that’s your intent (and I do hope it is)  then it’s time to offer the customer or prospect something to  incentivise them to come in and register.

One of my favorite websites, Veer, which sells stock  photography and fonts, offers me $10 to spend at their Veer marketplace.

Now if this was a boring site that would be a lame offer.  But the  fact that it’s an ultra-cool marketplace that along with its fonts and  stock photos has hip t-shirts and goofy gifts (these guys really know  their customer) makes this an ultracool offer that then becomes a hot  potato in my hand.

 

2. Get them to shop where YOU want them to shop. If you’re selling in a few different channels, you may be happy that  your customer is coming to one channel to shop.  But you’re missing an  opportunity to sell them more.  People’s behavior changes when they shop in a new or different channel and often they will purchase more just  from the sheer novelty of it.

An online-only offer can convert a retail customer into one  who shops online if they don’t find what they want in retail, instead of  just giving up.

I’ve recently seen Chico’s make me the offer of FREE shipping  when I buy online, even though I have two Chico’s near me.  It’s easier  and cheaper than getting in the car and driving there!

They make it even more interesting now that they’ve started creating some product that is online only—so even if I went to the store I wouldn’t find it. I  found myself responding yesterday by purchasing the “Artist’s Jacket.”  This was also referred to elsewhere as the Kaylen Jacket. (Note to merchants:  naming a product like that made it automatically  more appealing—the customer gets a feeling this jacket will make her  more creative!  This builds a benefit that normally would not be so  obvious with the purchase of an ‘ordinary’ jacket).

When I saw this was limited quantity, it really got my attention!

By the way, I believe that this kind of offer is going gangbusters  for Chico’s, as i noticed that almost as soon as they launched, they were already running out of sizes—and I’d only  gotten the offer a few days before.  Does that make anyone else’s heart  beat a little faster?  It sure did mine.

I am getting more and more emails that tell me I must come  into the store, or I must shop online, to take advantage of the offer.   And very often, this gets my attention and can even move me to act out  of curiosity.

 

 

3. Get ‘em to open and buy NOW. It breaks  my heart to see email offers with a response “tail” that’s too far out.  The offer deadlines (“You must order by [this date] to take advantage of  this offer”) for direct mail and catalog must be a few weeks from when  the recipient gets the catalog or mail offer.  But email is a  now-or-never medium and you must treat it like that when you set your  limits on the offer.

These folks are giving us too much time to put off dealing with their email —and their offer.

We’re seeing more and more “Today ONLY” or “This Wednesday  and Thursday ONLY” offers in email, and the reason is because it works.

Announcing this short time limit is essential both in the  email and the subject line. Think of that subject line as your envelope  teaser, in that its reason is to get someone to open and check it out.

Here’s the deal: If you send me an email on the 27th of the month, and think I’ll  pay any attention to it if the deadline is 2 weeks later, or even a week later, you’re in  dreamland.  I’ll forget that sucker as quickly as you can say, “click on  something more time-sensitive.”

Don’t give people a week—make them act  now.  Not doing so will drastically reduce action and subsequent sales.

So it’s time to try this on for size yourself. Look at your email history for the past six months and read your  results.  Then take on
the challenge of a short deadline offer, a small  window of opportunity,and decide if you have a particular place you  want to drive traffic.

Then, start testing your offers—and enjoy the results!

Creatives on the loose! Surefire ways to re-energize your creative team

One thing that is common amongst many of my clients is the prevalence of in-house creative departments. It’s a handy way to hold down a budget when there are a multitude of daily tasks such as layout, writing, and photography work for an ongoing campaign of emails, catalog, website and more.

But creatives are often a different breed from others on your staff. And that’s why every once in a while they need to be “broken outta the joint.”

I was reminded of this recently while I was working on a project for a client. I was coming up with preliminary creative solutions but I wasn’t nailing it. The frustration was killing me. And then fate intervened…

The DMA conference came along and completely separated me from my desktop and drawing board, allowing me some space to reconsider the problem I needed to solve in a whole new space. I heard case histories on many other kinds of problems—none of them like mine, but it was energizing to hear new solutions and results that came from those answers.

Sometime that week, I stopped working on the problem I was trying to solve and just absorbed… and bingo! Midweek, I realized a new way to go about solving the problem that, had I been attached to my desk, I probably would never have found.

It was a good reminder to me that while our deadlines are ever-present, just about the best way to squeeze the life out of a creative, and reduce their creative capability to zero, is to never, ever let them out of the studio, never give them time away from the phone and email, and so on.

When I had my working studio with three employees, we planned activities a few times a year that just gave them a chance to break free.

And often it was a great departure from our day to day tasks … we did high tea at the Huntington in Pasadena, and I can’t forget our annual DisneyThon (do every ride in Disneyland in a single long day).

But I also paid for them to attend direct marketing creative guild functions and local DMA functions so that they could be exposed to others in their field.

This kind of ‘care and feeding’ of my staff gave them energy and ideas that they brought back to the studio. Our work stayed strong and vital even in high stress times, because they’d had a chance to see something other than the four walls around them.

All this is to say, consider implementing these 4 ways to re-energize your creative department…

1. Pay for them to attend local meetings like the DMA, the Graphic Artists’ Guild, or even some other networking group where ideas are shared. Many fear that the creative will be job hunting during those meetings, but I have never lost an employee from exposing them to others!

2. Plan with them for some fun times outside of the office, regardless of schedules and deadlines… and I mean, during normal work hours. A local amusement park, baseball tickets, or a fun lunch out—even an afternoon at the movies—often gives them the break they need in order to detox from long hours hunched over a keyboard.

3. Bring in an outsider to brainstorm with. On a regular basis I’m called in to simply brainstorm with creative departments, both on the agency and client side. I have an advantage in that I’m not there all the time, and I’m able to infuse some fresh ideas and problem-solve with the staff. We laugh a lot, get lunch together, and tackle some very big problems with fresh imagination and energy. And it always pays off for them in terms of increased sales resulting from smarter creative.

4. Give them occasional ‘work offsite’ days, with live assignments and problems to solve. Some are better self-starters than others, but trying it once will show you whether they benefit from that ‘away’ time or not. They may just decide to work for the day in a local coffee house or down by the lake, since often home is too distracting. But to give them relief from the four walls could be the perfect antidote for lifeless creative.

Believe it or not, the most effective time to do this is often the busiest time of your year. And while it may sound insane to pull them away from work, in fact, it’s those times of highest stress when it’s the most effective.

I saw a recent study by the International Journal of Innovation and Learning that was based on the oft-claimed theory about how ‘my people work best under pressure.’

It turns out, that is completely false. The study determined that under pressure, people will resort to the safest solutions, and shun seeking innovative ones. They lose interest in finding a better way to get something done, because they’re fearful of missing the mark.

Fatigue becomes their M.O., decreasing work engagement and innovation.

To see an article about this, visit this link

So, now it’s time to pull out your calendar, and set up a schedule for the care and feeding of your creative department. You’ll be amazed by the payoff you get as a result. And who knows, you may benefit, too—even if you’re the type your creative staff refers to as a “suit!”

Pay off the promise in your creative efforts

Multichannel is everywhere – and that’s because there’s not a successful business on earth that’s not promoting themselves on a variety of media channels.

But there are so many missed opportunities! That’s because so many companies split up the responsibility, and then don’t have a strong conduit and brand that holds all their efforts together. This is something that cannot be taken for granted: given a lack of guidance a creative will just start making stuff up!

As creative as they are, it will do nothing short of sabotaging your multichannel effort, because it won’t be attached to your brand and your other campaigns.

What’s more, your very first contact must be the ‘leader’ of the multichannel effort. Whether working with an email/landing page combo, or a catalog cover/first inside spread, or a direct mail effort, your teaser, headline or subject line is your first opportunity to get someone’s attention. So every effort in your arsenal – be it email, mail or whatever – must provide both the tease and the PAYOFF.

If your message – the copy – is meaningful to your customer, and a real grabber, the next step—the follow through, or payoff—is essential to keep continuity of thought.  That’s a highly effective way to keep a customer’s attention long enough to woo them and sell a product or service.

Why?  It’s all about the mental momentum you establish when you get them through the gate and greet them “inside.”  People like continuity of thought, and they don’t see a lot of it in advertising. Much of advertising online and in catalog is sadly disconnected so the consumer is never really satisfied with the next step.

Get on mailing and email lists for companies like Chico’s, and you see that most times, they establish a true “campaign” with their ongoing email, website and catalogs (and even on store signage)—and they take it one better, by making sure that the landing page, and even the website, match very closely in language and visuals to the email that attracted the customer in.

Plus, they take control of their contact strategy and timing.  So the email arrival is timed to make it easy to spot the match in concept to the most current catalog cover.  The “mental snapshot” that people get from glancing at their catalog cover is reinforced again and again.

And while repetition isn’t as powerful a selling agent as the general advertising world would like you to believe, there is still power in recognition from repetition when you do it in the right places.

Email/Landing Pages: the payoff is what makes it successful.

SO… I click on an email, and if it interests me I’ll click to follow it to a landing page. More often than not, that landing page will be the home page of their website – or it will be landing page that does not pay off what we were told on the email.

Here’s an example:

No payoff: This email came in from VacationRentals.com, and the big theme is ‘New Year’s Resolutions:  Travel More!’  This is a good idea because it speaks to the person who sees travel as a reward for hard work and something they should have done more of last year.

In contrast, the landing page says nothing about rewarding yourself with the New Year’s resolution to travel more often.  The email just drops us like a stone into the home page, and we’re already forgetting the idea of being ‘true to your new year’s resolution’ by planning some travel NOW.  In fact, they don’t even pay off the idea of nightly rates as low as $50.  This is a naïve approach, and a big opportunity.

On the other hand let’s look at one that works…

Payoff: Saks has a few different approaches but they always seem to ‘pay off’ the email with a compelling landing page that repeats the offer and the graphics—but starts to sell, too.

So with this landing page, you see the payoff clearly—and then, down the left there’s a nav to pull them in, and on the right, there are examples of departments where great savings are to be found.  The folks at Saks understand how crucial momentum is in making someone respond to the email by clicking the first time, and then staying with the landing page enough to become engaged in what they see, followed by seeking products and buying.

There are other ways to pay off in an email/landing page environment too.  Where RugsUSA uses a big blowout style email…they simply pay it off in the top banner of the landing page.

This ‘tease and payoff’ approach is as valid, and as necessary, in direct mail as it is in an email/landing page environment.

It’s like in mail: You can’t have a successful mailing by piecing together disparate envelope teasers and letters.  It just doesn’t work.

So, if you have a teaser on the outgoing envelope that says “Inside: the incredible bargain our competitors don’t want you to know about…” then you need to pay that off with the letter inside—usually in the letter’s intro:

Our competitors said it wasn’t playing fair. Our marketing firm said that by dropping the price this low, we’d hurt our ‘public image’.

But we just can’t help ourselves. When our manufacturer gives us a massive price break, we simply feel it’s only fair to pass that savings on to YOU.

And that’s why our competitors are going to be so upset when they find out we’re selling you this top-of-the-line laptop at such a bargain price. They can’t meet it or beat it. Only we can offer you such quality at such a price!

Dear (customer’s name))…

Now, if that letter had no ‘payoff intro’ and just started out with…

Dear ((customer name))

We’re pleased to be able to offer you the best price ever on our new Computer name model XXX.

…you’d lose that customer’s attention instantly.  The drama defused, it would be as boring as every other piece of mail they get from banks, mortgage companies and so on.

While postcards seem short and sweet, you still need to treat the address side as the message they see first, and tease there.  But if you pay off on the ‘picture side’ it must be strong enough as a standalone statement (just as the intro to the letter is, above) that when they forget what they read on the front, it won’t confuse them.  And you want to remind them why they flipped the card over.

This kind of writing requires a longer attention span than we typically see these days.  It requires more discipline and training to figure out what will get this customer’s attention and then how they’d be most satisfied when you pay it off.

But the reward is, if done right, it will lure them in and then feed their curiosity just long enough for you to make your pitch and get their order.

Creative tune-up – Part 2: More steps to increase success in the mail

In the last segment of this article, I covered the difference in  personality and function between direct mail and your other contacts  with your customer.  Mail’s immediacy is more likely to get attention than a ‘put it aside for later’ catalog, so it works best when you’re really putting it all out there for the recipient to see. In short, you can’t be coy when it comes to the offer and the selling proposition.

The exciting news is this:  when created with  the focus and strategy that is appropriate for direct mail, it can pack a  wallop.

Direct mail is short, fast, and like email, has a  very limited lifespan, so it needs to be highly focused in  order to get and keep a
customer’s attention. But direct mail has some power that even email doesn’t  have—it’s something they can’t help but touch when they go  through their mail at the end of the day.  And when you send it to a  customer who knows you, you have a built-in advantage.

But that is not enough! Here are seven more guidelines to help you tackle and achieve success with a  direct mail piece.

5. Is the format interesting, and does it compel them  to dig in and look? Hey, anyone can fold a piece of paper in  half.  Static electricity often holds these pieces closed enough that  it’s not even obvious that the piece should be opened up.  So not only  is a standard folded piece boring, it won’t even effectively pull the  reader inside.

Try a little light origami and get yourself a winner!  For  Script and Scribble we designed a short-fold piece that begged to be  opened. We used fugitive glue (OK, I’ll say it for all you hedonists out there… bugger glue!)  to hold it closed so the customer didn’t  have to tear open those irritating tabs.  And it worked like  gangbusters. Even now, they still use this as an interim piece between  catalogs to drive traffic to their website.

Think big, too.  6” x 9” can be pretty ordinary.  A 4” x 6” postcard may go postcard rate but it’s a big yawn.  Go 6” x 10” or 11”  and it stands out from all the other pieces in the mailbox. Make it  colorful and it will hold its own.  Make the headline direct and  powerful and make the offer pop, so that people don’t have to look at it  too carefully to “get” that this is something cool.

6. Is there an action device? You may laugh  at scratch-offs, but they work.  Consider using either a scratch-off or  a peel-up replaceable dot or label, where lifting the label will tell  them what they’ve won or what they’re saving.  Even if the response you  want is online, you can do this with a hidden ‘prize number.’  By the time they’re done scratching or peeling up the label, you will have their attention.  And never, ever include a “sorry, try again next time” message—they’re insulting, and you come across as cheap and a little sleazy.  Everyone should feel like a winner.

7. Keep it focused. A direct mail piece  that tries to do too much will usually fail.  Decide what you want them  to do, and then tell them what that is, and how they can complete the  task to get a thank-you gift. People are time-impoverished.  They need  you to be straightforward with them.  Direct mail can drive a person  anywhere you want them to go but you have to tell them the rules.  Communicate that they can only get this deal by going online, if you  want to drive web orders.  Tell them when they need to do it by. And  make that big, bold and clear.

8. Choose your audience. It’s best to start  with your house list and make it an offer for good customers. Don’t  send it to someone who hasn’t ordered in three years and then tell them  they’re a good customer—they don’t believe you and you end up looking  foolish.  Choose the best of your list and treat them to some good,  old-fashioned honest deal that they’ll enjoy.

9. Offset the cost with some co-op dollars. If you are selling products by another maker, chances are there are  co-op dollars that they set aside for advertising.  That’s right; in  many cases over half the cost of space advertising comes from those  co-op dollars.  And the same is true for direct mail.  That’s why you  see stores doing a postcard with a special promotion on Jones New  York—its cost is half covered by Jones New York.  Maybe there’s some  money there for you, too. As my best friend’s grandmother used to tell  us, “if ya don’t ask, ya don’t get.”

10. Use it to feature one big product. If,  for example, you sell greenhouses and smaller goods, direct mail is a  great way to sell an individual special greenhouse, or a new line.  If  you have a huge piece of equipment, or a new line of computer monitors,  this is a great way to highlight it and not allow it to get lost inside a catalog, where people get distracted.  Do a real, honest-to-goodness  sell on the product. Think of it as an infomercial on paper.  This is  salesmanship at its finest, if you can pull it off.  Allow no creative  to work on this who is not comfortable with selling—it’s not a beauty  contest. Make no mistake, it can look great, but selling is paramount.  Use dynamics to keep it interesting looking, with big heroes and  secondary/tertiary shots. Develop a hierarchy of messaging to keep them  reading.

11. Use email to prime the pump. You know  how busy YOU are—and so are your customers.  Tell them that there is a  super secret sale mailer coming to them in a few days with an offer that  they will want to know about—and it’s good for only a week. This is  the Publisher’s Clearing House approach in a way—they used to  use postcards to tell us that a big mail pack was coming.  Those days  are over, but you do have email to do the same job.

You owe it to yourself to try direct mail. And when you do, make sure your dollars are smartly spent. Customers pay  attention to a piece that’s different from what you always send them.   Use the compelling promotional power that smart mail provides.

Use this checklist to tune up your mail! If you’re digging into this elusive but proven medium, drop me a line at CWL@Worthington-Levy.com and let me know what you’re up to! And if you like, we can spend a few minutes with you to  discuss your creative and offer strategy.

Creative Tune-Up – Part 1: Developing creative to fit your format and goal

Have you been as bored by your mail this past few years as I have? While I appreciate the fact that a control package will arrive again and again, it would be great to see something really exciting, really inspired and inspiring in my mailbox. Not the same old crap.

Like most of us, our customers also like variety. They respond to it, too, if you send them something worth looking at. That’s just one reason why repetitive emails fail dramatically, and why they simply don’t work in prospecting. It’s also why companies who used to send a catalog every month to a prospect, hoping to turn them into a customer, are realizing that they’re spending a lot in throwing stuff at the wall that’s simply not sticking.

I’ll bet that there’s a catalog that arrives at your own home, month after month, that you’ve never bought from, and never plan to. That shows you why fine tuned database profiles are an important part of contact strategy. And why any business who isn’t doing that because it’s too expensive is in fact losing money. But i digress… back to creative!

There are many interesting ways to contact prospects frequently… and that’s why smart multichannel businesses have been turning to direct mail as an addendum to the rest of their multichannel contact strategy. Whether in a consumer or a B2B environment, interesting and well targeted mail is a real attention getter.

Direct mail is not a replacement for a catalog or email. It has its own strengths and advantages. And when done effectively it will pay for itself handsomely.

Direct mail is short, fast, and like email, has a  very limited lifespan. Good direct mail demands more immediate  attention than most catalogs, which recipients often put aside and wait  ‘til later to read.

It’s especially effective with your existing or past customers. If you’ve served a customer well in the past, that customer gives your direct mail immediate attention as they pore through their mail pile. Unlike a catalog that they put aside for future reading (and may never pick up again), the immediacy of mail makes the customer either deal with it, or throw it out. And, if you’re sending it to a customer, you have a sizable advantage over other direct mailers out there…they know you, they’ve purchased from you. So  you already have credibility with them.

Prospects will also deal with mail quickly, although it still gets more attention than a prospecting email. When designed and written with real, targeted effort and when they see some good reason to open it and spend time with it, mail is still a powerful prospecting medium.

Now, if you’ve tried DM and it’s been disappointing, it’s time to  tune up your creative and offer strategy. After all, direct mail has  worked for literally generations, and it continues to work extremely  well when it’s done correctly.   The boring stuff fails—but the good  pieces work.

And if you follow some important standards, it will work for  you.

1. Revise your expectations. Direct mail is  not a cheap replacement for catalog. Direct mail may not take up as  much paper as a catalog, but it’s still not inexpensive to mail.   So if you’re looking at it like an accountant instead of a marketer, you’re missing the point of sending direct mail.

Use direct mail for what it’s good at—focusing a customer’s  attention on a new line, introducing a single high end product with  multiple SKUs (for upselling).   And making the customer want to do what you want them to do—be it go online, or visit retail, or order within a certain range of time.

It actually takes smarter and more experienced creative to  make direct mail work. Even well-trained catalog designers and writers  don’t always have that know-how.   It’s very different from a multi-page document.  You need focus, strategy, killer headlines and copy, and an  offer that grabs attention and creates action.

Don’t treat your direct mail like a brand piece.   If you do, you’re not setting the bar high enough. Plan it and execute it with the goal to generate sales, now—and if you focus on that, and put all the right pieces into place, you will succeed.

2. Give it a reason for being there. Don’t  just send an effort that has your masthead and shows products.   You  need to time it with an event—in many cases, one that YOU create,  yourself. SALE is good, but often not enough to garner attention  anymore. Everyone’s got everything on sale. Your merchandise is important but that is simply not enough.

So you need to crank it up a notch.   Create an event and  give it a name.

• “Our 11-1/2 year anniversary sale” (odd numbers get  attention)
• “Our Best Stuff 3-day Sale” (uses curiosity on the part of  the customer—what IS your best stuff?)
• “Our One Hot Week This Summer sale” (limited time slot  gets someone’s attention)
• Our “Not-Found-In-Any-Catalog” web-only sale
• And so on…

Hey, think of how every year we see a retailer use “Christmas  in July” as a theme.   Sounds corny? Well, it works, because it’s a  little bit kooky, and Christmas is a good thing.  But, YOU can do better  than that!  So put on your thinking cap.

3. An offer is essential—but a dollars-off  offer isn’t always the right one. Testing will tell you some of the  things your customers are most likely to be excited about.

For an online seller of personalized gifts and office  supplies, we tested dollars off vs personalized post-it notes that were  actually worth less than the dollars—and the big winner was the  personalized post-its. It cost the client less, too!  Note, this takes  a little bit of imagination and understanding of your customer to  figure out what might make a great test.   But it’s worth the effort.

Keep in mind, if you feel you must discount, most of the time  dollars off work better than percentages off.   Don’t make ‘em do the
math—they’re too tired at the end of the day!  Tell them—$10 off your  order of $80 or more—and that actually sounds better than 15% off (which it’s not.)

And remember, the strongest word in the offer world is FREE. Buy six plants and get a seventh one FREE. Buy any greenhouse and  get a FREE greenhouse fan. Buy a Paint Spray Gun and get two free  tips. FREE shipping on an order of $89 or more.  Sign up for our  email updates and get a chance to win a FREE something-or-other.  Heck, for one B2B client, we once even offered a coupon for a FREE large pizza from Dominos (in  the form of an online coupon) if they did what we wanted—and it turned  out to be a winner of an offer that cost us very little compared to the  price of the product.

4. Is the piece interesting on the address side? Often people who don’t do mail regularly will forget that the  addressing side may be the only thing someone notices. That is the  place you need to get their attention. So your offer and deadline for action belongs there (as well  as other places).

Is your reason for ‘visiting’ them apparent on the address side?  I get mailings from concert halls with no information at all on  the address side! But when I do creative work pro bono for concerts, I know that every single potential customer is meaningful, so I  make sure that the date  —and the composer or name of the piece — is near  the recipient’s name and address.

See the continuation of this article in the next segment!

Bullets or body copy? Which one’s right for your product or service?

Every product—and every category of product—has its own special  features, benefits, and hopefully a unique selling proposition.  Yet in  many websites and catalogs, we find ourselves using the same structure  to sell every product.  It’s an easy solution that takes far less time  than considering the best way to sell each product.  But are you missing out on sales with that “all the same”  approach?

We all know there are some products that have loads of  technical information.  Sometimes that’s of interest to the customer,  and sometimes it’s ancillary and not what will sell the product.  If you’re buying high-end stereo equipment, the features are a key part of your decision to purchase a product; you’ll need to have a column of bullet points to list them all.  But if you’re buying sticky note pads, a  list of features is simply ridiculous.

Yet I see many websites and catalogs where products that are  so simple are treated like products that are complex.  This is what I  call
‘writing on auto pilot’.  And it’s not good for your sales or your brand.

Since I started out with sticky notes, let’s keep using that  as an example…

Which product would have more appeal and sell better?

……………………………………………………………..

A.   Post-it® 3″ x 3″ Notes, Canary Yellow

• 100 sheets per pad
• Pack of 12 pads
• Self-adhesive
• Removable and repositionable
• Use for flagging, tabbing, indexing, short notes
• Sizes are approximate

or…

B.  Post-it® 3″ x 3″ Notes, Canary Yellow
100 sheets per pad, pack of 12 pads

Use these notes for messages, flagging, tabbing, indexing and  more.  Jot down a note or flag an important page of a presentation.  Sheets are self-adhesive, removable and repositionable for convenience.   Sizes are approximate.

……………………………………………………………..

I’m sure you have an opinion on this—but actual  measuring of sales and response shows us that while people like  the convenience of bullet points, it tends to make the product more  uniform, thereby moving the purchase into a more cognitive realm.

So while the sticky notes in example A and example B are the  same price, the customer is more likely to start price shopping from example A.

Why?  Because there is no relationship developed with  example A—it’s all just a laundry list; mechanical with no personality.   On the other hand, example B takes up the same amount or even less  room, but it’s warmer and gives ideas for use that someone may not have  thought of.

A customer is more likely to buy sticky notes B, and they  are more likely to remember where they bought them.

On the other hand, if you’re selling a product with technical specifications, bullet points are an important part of the selling information.  That does not mean that there should be no body copy—it  just means that listing features in a run-on list inside the body copy  doesn’t make it easy for the customer to quickly see what makes this product different.

An example of this might be a camera…

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Casio – EXILIM 10.1-Megapixel Digital Camera – Black

Model: EX-S5BK | SKU: 9277917

Customer Reviews:  4.5    Read reviews (2)

Capture brilliant images with this digital camera that  features a 1/2.3″ CCD image sensor and face detection technology for  clear, detailed images.

Reg.  Price: $149.99   You Save: $20.00   Sale Price:  $129.99

HURRY! Sale price expires 10/1/09

FREE SHIPPING! Usually leaves our warehouse  within 1 business day.

What’s Included

• Casio EXILIM 10.1-Megapixel Digital Camera
• Rechargeable lithium-ion battery (NP-80)
• Owner’s manual

Product Features

• 10.3-megapixel CCD
• Captures high-resolution images up to up to 3648 x 2736  pixels.
• 3x optical/4x digital/12x total zoom
• For precise zooming and accuracy.  HD zoom allows up to  17.1x
  maximum zoom in VGA mode.
• 2.7″ color TFT-LCD monitor
• With 479 x 240 resolution for a clear display.
• High ISO sensitivity (1600)
• Face detection technology
• Isolates subjects in-frame and optimizes conditions to  take the best pictures of friends and family.

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See how the kickoff is a short block of body copy that can be scanned in an instant.  Then, for a website (and possibly  for a catalog!), a star review to assure the customer that this is a  great product.

How the ‘sell’ differs from web to catalog. For a catalog, you’d continue on here with bullet points.  The SKU and the price would be at the bottom unless you had a more ‘retail’ format and were sending the customer into a retail store.

For a website, the order of the information changes, because  customer behavior on the web is different—we put the price right under  the review, with the free shipping offer, and then we head into bullet  pointed information.  The website has LOTS of space that’s essentially  free at this point.  So the bullet point list can have up to 20 bullet points.

For a catalog, you don’t have the space, and the reader won’t  actually assimilate deeper than about five or six bullet points on a  printed page, anyway.  This is a GREAT reason to use that opportunity to draw the reader into your website to see more—and draw them to the  selling page for that product, where they can read the deep list and  then place their order right then and there!

Making the bullet points count. In the example above, note how the bullet points have a  short explanation of the resulting feature—that’s actually how  to show the benefit that’s associated with the feature in a simple and  concise way.

Features without associated benefits don’t have  nearly the selling power that straight, bullet-pointed features have. When you don’t mention the benefit, you assume too much; you believe  that your customer has thought of all the reasons why this is a good  feature.  In most cases they have not. In fact, even with a  knowledgeable enthusiast shopping, there is a pretty good chance you  won’t be as likely to get the sale with straight bullet points as you  would with feature/benefit bullet points as shown above.  This will make a measurable difference in sales.

Here’s another example that works pretty well from one of my clients, Quartermaster.  They kick off a sell for a short sleeve uniform shirt with body copy that has an emotional edge to it—and they emphasize the most important benefits—value, comfort and ease of care.

Note how the bullet points include the benefit built into the  feature line…

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LawPro 100% Polyester Premium Short Sleeve Shirt

Meets the high quality standards you’d expect in a uniform  shirt that costs two or even three times more!  Our easy-care machine  washable uniform shirts are constructed of premium fabric with a tighter  weave than other uniform shirts for enhanced moisture wicking to ensure  you stay drier and more comfortable.

• 100% polyester construction with soil-release finish  provides superior
  soil and stain resistance.
• 5 sewn-in military creases present a professional uniform  appearance.
• Premium features include button down epaulets and  permanent collar stays.
• Safety stitch side seams offer extra strength and  durability.
• Convenient sling badge tab.

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This 1-2 punch of good body copy—kept minimal through careful  editing but also kept personable through thoughtful writing—followed by  meaningful bullet points, is a powerful combination that can serve you  well if you have products that require more than simple body copy.

Not every item in your catalog or website should be treated  exactly the same way, though.  It may be that you have items that  require a small block of body copy to make the sale.

I challenge you to raise the bar on your copy treatments.   Seek out places where benefit-edged feature bullet points will help you  to explain at a glance more of what makes a specific product worth  buying. Combine it with a kickoff of some solid and compelling body copy  that includes a few of the most essential benefits as shown in the  example immediately above.

Then give it a try on a few products that are already decent  sellers, and watch your sales improve. When well executed, this approach will sell more, and encourage further exploration of you as a resource for other products, now and in the future.

Making your sweepstakes a win-win for YOU.

It’s the ultimate ‘attention-getter’ and often very misused:  the sweepstakes is a tactic, like any other marketing tool, which needs to be used thoughtfully and with long-term planning. But the payoff for you can be terrific.

Why would you want to use a sweepstakes? Won’t it attract bad prospects? Will it pay off? Why would people think this was an honest promotion? Does it make you look bad…or like a business that it would be fun to get to know better?

Now, creative may seem like a strange place to discuss a sweeps, but the actual creative handling of this kind of promotion is as important as the promotion itself.

Why use a sweepstakes?

1. Build your house list faster. To develop a high-level prospect list, a sweeps can be used to get attention, and then draw people into your email circle, from which you can send them offers and introduce them to different products—and convert them from prospects to customers.
2. Activate the inactive. If you have a house list that’s lulled off to dreamland, a sweeps can wake them up and make them look at you again.
3. Add a fun twist to something you’re selling. A traditional approach is the “everyone’s a winner” sweeps. So if you were selling a continuity program for gourmet coffee, you’d invite them to the sweeps to win a year’s worth of coffee for the office—but everyone who enters is a winner, getting a free coffee canister or mug set. In these scenarios, enough people who are entering the sweeps also try the series so that it pays off despite those who simply want the gift.

What kind of sweeps?

There are many different ways to develop a sweeps but the most important aspect is this:  stay true to your brand.

So if you sell very high-end furniture, offering a $10,000 gift certificate to your “store” is a great prize. No, it’s not the Mercedes…but that’s not the point. What IS the point is that by having a prize like that, you’re showing them your wares, and getting them to fantasize about having a house filled with the beautiful product.

If you’re New Pig, a quiz to celebrate their “Hamiversary” gets the customer engaged and exploring the website. The prizes are inexpensive but the event is as quirky and pig-centric as New Pig—and memorable.If you’re catering to cooks, you may offer a beautiful high-end chafing dish to tout your large array of chafers. Or if you were a real estate developer, a sweeps prize could be a chance to attend a wonderful event at the location of your most recently opened developments.Now, that one gives me room to talk about something else…why wouldn’t I suggest that the developer offer free hardwood floors—a $20,000 VALUE—as the prize for the home they anticipate you’ll buy? Because first, they don’t know you, so why would they consider buying? The prize is moot to them. Plus, more importantly, it’s illegal! You can’t make someone buy something to get their prize—it has to be free and clear of any purchase.

You can also team up with another company with a strong affinity to yours to develop a sweeps. Check out the Martha Stewart Whole Living magazine sweeps, where you can win a J. Jill item every day.

How about more than one prize?

Most sweeps have a multi-prize structure. Some will have a grand prize (it can be worth as little as $5,000 but be something great), a second prize (proportionally worth less—perhaps a $500 gift certificate to your catalog or website), and three third prizes, each worth $100. That gives the people reading your promo a feeling that they have more chances to win.

Another structure, meant to keep the customer on the lookout for future contacts, is to have some early bird prizes, which are good only for those who enter right away. This primes them to get off the dime and into action. You can even do multiple early birds, with a reminder that the grand prize will be drawn from ALL entries. Space them out to keep the action alive.

Must there be a cash prize?

There is no need to offer cash instead of the prize you’re offering—but you must make sure that you have very clearly defined rules that are in writing, on your website and possibly in the printed piece you send out to announce the sweeps. Be sure to refer to other rules from well-known companies who run sweeps, and consider bringing in an attorney who specializes in sweeps. Small sweeps tend to run without much regulation—unlike those million dollar sweeps.

Of course, the beauty of offering product is that the perceived value is much higher than what YOU will actually pay. And that’s what makes it a great prize—it does not cost you as much.

Spreading the word using creative and lists.

The most successful sweepstakes use the power of mail and well-targeted mailing lists to announce the promotion. Plan to work with someone who really knows postal regulations and understands how to put a sweeps promo together that announces the fun event. This is not an art director’s medium…get too subtle and the whole thing bombs. Copy should be bold, but if too brazen, you may overstep your prospect’s boundaries. Still, it’s surprising how many will open it, and respond, even if they are upper income and you’d never think they would! There is a careful balance that makes it work.

You can do a sweeps by email to your house list, but I don’t recommend buying email prospect lists, unless there is an extremely strong connection. For example, when I did the email/landing page campaign for Universal Music’s ‘roots rock’ market, they had only 2,500 names in their database, but there were fan sites for individual singers whose style was roots rock—and we were able to rent those names and harness fan power.

Draw the responders to a landing page that is NOT your home page—recent testing showed us that response drops when you send people to your home page in response to a promotion. Make the landing page reflect the promotion loudly and clearly.

Any final suggestions?

With all of these things, planning is important. Allow time to get everything in order so you can choose a great time to start up the sweeps.

Don’t be afraid to have some fun with these promotions. Things that usually increase response include peel-up stickers and rub-offs. This is a great opportunity to use personalized URLs (PURLs) to get the responder into their own personalized landing page, and this also will kick up the response a notch or two.

Think about what would make this more fun for you, if you were the recipient. Give the sweeps a really fun name, using a word like “sweepstakes.” Think of unusual names such as “The Rockin’ the USA sweepstakes” or the “Fine Home Shopping Spree.” Even the Domino’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” sweeps is a grabber, with that out-of-the-ordinary name.

Remember, this is a big chance for you to bring in new customers, and reactivate old ones—so be bold and be successful.