Branding Lacking in Direct Response Mail

Written By Ted Grigg

Direct mail does not support branding as far as most branders would like for good reason according to James Rosenfield in his excellent article entitled “BRAND AND BRANDING, REVISITED YET ONE MORE TIME AGAIN.”

“Big consumer brands are built on television. This is still true in 2004, in spite of ever-multiplying and fragmenting media.

Why is this? Because television is the archetypal right brain hemisphere medium. Television influences the brain by bringing it into a kind of dream time, when images can creep in, more-or-less subliminally, in a nanosecond. That's why intellectually indefensible notions can be communicated persuasively on TV, that drinking beer makes you attractive to the opposite sex, for example.

Direct mail is the archetypal left-brain hemisphere medium. It's verbal and therefore leisurely, the very definition of how the left hemisphere works. (In fact, in order to make direct mail effective in the 21st Century, left hemisphere communications techniques have to be transmuted into right hemisphere techniques as much as possible.”


He goes on to say that branding in direct mail essentially consists of the logo and slogan. And inserting visuals from the TV advertising does nothing to improve response rates.

This does not mean that direct mail elicits no emotional impact. But that the impact comes from story telling and great letter writing. That probably explains why the letter is so critical to direct mail effectiveness.

Have you gone beyond the logo and slogan in your direct mail testing to see if response rates increased with the use of other branding techniques such as a common look to the graphics and television imagery? If so, what were the results?

 
If you would like to read James Rosenfield’s full article, you can view here.

Ted Grigg

Ted Grigg is a direct response strategist who helps growth-focused companies reduce risk by identifying weak assumptions before they become costly mistakes.

Over the course of his career, Ted has evaluated several hundred million dollars in direct response testing across direct mail, digital, print, television, telephone, and other channels. His work combines direct response strategy, acquisition economics, customer analysis, creative evaluation, offer development, and disciplined testing.

Ted has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business. That experience gives him a practical understanding of the pressures facing executives, marketing teams, agencies, and service providers—and of the problems that arise when activity, media volume, or creative preference replaces a clear economic objective.

His consulting work helps organizations examine such questions as:

  • Are acquisition goals economically realistic?

  • Is the allowable Cost Per Sale supported by customer value?

  • Are targeting, offers, creative, media, and response paths working together?

  • Are tests structured to produce reliable business decisions?

  • Are unproven assumptions being treated as facts?

  • Is the organization measuring sales outcomes rather than convenient proxies?

Ted’s experience includes the development of direct mail and multichannel acquisition programs for insurance, healthcare, financial services, technology, nonprofit, manufacturing, retail, transportation, communications, government, and business-to-business organizations.

For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, he developed a direct mail format that defeated established controls and helped expand the productive use of compiled prospect lists from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent of total direct mail circulation within one year. He also planned Medicare lead-generation programs for more than 60 regional and national HMO and PPO organizations, with some programs exceeding sales projections by as much as 60 percent.

Ted founded Wyse Direct, a direct marketing division of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, where he developed acquisition programs and helped launch a new technology product for Seiko Instruments by generating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads for its national sales organization. As vice president of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, he helped broaden the agency’s strategic capabilities and pursue new commercial and fundraising opportunities.

He is the author of The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan—A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Executive Enterprises, and has written numerous articles and conducted webinars on direct response strategy, testing, creative development, and marketing economics.

Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and completed two years of graduate study at Texas Tech University. He is the founder of DMCG, LLC.

http://www.dmcgresults.com
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