Logo Cops Kill Great Direct Mail Packages

Written By Ted Grigg
DMCG Results

Logo CopIf you have worked in direct marketing, then you have seen the Logo Cops in larger organizations destroy promising direct marketing campaigns.

You know the drill.

You spend talent and money creating a great direct mail package with a strong offer. Your direct mail format cuts through the clutter by looking different. The format, though sometimes purposely unattractive aesthetically, is a proven winner. The offer meets all branding requirements by not cheapening the company's products for a one shot sale.

But the Logo Cops still manage to kill winning direct mail and creative executions in other media.

Here’s an example.

Logo cops often want to typeset the letter and follow all graphics requirements as laid out in the company's graphics manual. This is a big no-no for direct mail response.

They further modify the outer envelope to make sure all recipients see a consistent "look and feel" of all company messages. They eliminate critical teaser copy for the same reason. (The list of such stupid changes for the sake of "branding" goes on endlessly).

The Logo Cops just managed to convert a probable winning direct mail package into a sure looser.

All marketers take heed. Branding the company and its products goes far beyond the literal interpretation or focus on "look and feel" found in the company's graphics manual. Expounding on this concept alone would require writing a book.

Suffice to say that we need not ask how the creative execution supports the brand so much as how the brand supports sales. After all, the objective is not branding but selling.

I'd love to hear some of your stories related to how the misapplication of branding has hurt sales in your experience. Please share them by responding to this post.

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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