Ignoring this Key Direct Marketing Strategy Assures Failure

Jul 13

Nothing baffles me more than seeing clients refuse to test their direct mail creative work, offers and mailing lists.

After testing several thousand direct mail packages during my long career in this business, clients refues to test when they could improve their response rates by 200-600% with smart testing.

Does everything work? Of course not, that's why testing become THE fundamental direct response markeyting strategy.

Testing means creating a program that test direct mail in the following manner.

Test statistically reliable quantities. Test based on projected response based on your present control. 100 leads or 50 sales for each package should give you reproducable expansion reliability. Some companies look for at least 100 sales. But this depends on your average sale. The higher the average sales, the lower the response quantity of sales for each package.
Always run the control package along with the test package to compare response and conversion rates. The control guarantees that all elements such as weather, current events and other external circumstances impact both direct mail packages similarly.
Test mailing list catagories or list selects at the same time using a test grid approach.
Consider all response points for proper attribution to the mailing. Create a special landing page for each offer or a PURL so web responses are attributed to the mailing. Many respondents to day use the phone or the Internet regardless of how you ask them to respond. So be prepared to track all response points by thinking through the response process.

I find clients insist on mailing untested self mailers in the face of the evidence that envelope packages with a ltter will beat response by 200% over postcards and self mailers. They alos do not test their list selection criteria or multiple list sources that will increase response by 400% or more.

So if you are not spending 15% or more on your annual budget for testing, you are well on your way to long term direct response program failure. The best you can do otherwise is to maintain status quo.

So I ask. Why are you refusing to test relying on your flawed instincts and anecdotal evidence. Star testing today and don't wait for someone else to uncover your weak direct response strategy.

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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