Zen marketing

“To the novice, there are many

possibilities. To the expert, just one”

Learning through reflection is a most demanding task. Learning through experience the most damaging.

Learning through the experience of others is the easiest.

All the points made below are derived from personal experience. They are provided to help the reader avoid the ‘burned fingers’ of trial and error – of wasting your marketing budget on an idea, just to discover your idea is not new and the results of your market test were already documented and available.

Each of these lessons is expanded upon, with example promotions, in the members-only section.

Direct marketing is a precise, but delicate craft. Unfortunately, common sense will not guide you through the journey - only learning will guarantee you success. Here, then, are thirty-one rules to keep you happily and safely on the right path:

1.     To the novice, there are many possibilities, to the expert, there are few. Consulting with others in your company on how to promote your publication is futile. Only an expert marketer can decide. Since there is little chance your editor will ever ask you to edit his publication, or your managing director ask you to run the company, why should you consult with either of them on your promotions? Direct marketing falls across many disciplines - selling, creative writing, website design, collecting debts and running a profitable micro-business. There is unlikely to be anyone - except the marketing expert - who will be able to create a promotion that takes all these areas into consideration and map the convoluted path to profitability.

2.   Convincing someone takes a long time. Although you probably have 'no time' to read long letters, it appears that prospective buyers do. Long sales letters and email messages of eight to 16 pages continue to out-perform shorter messages. Why? Because they carry more information - and people who are interested in what you are selling like lots of information before they make a purchase. That’s how a sale is made and it’s why a sale  takes such a long time: people want all their questions answered. If you don’t answer those questions, no sale.

3.   People buy benefits not products. Don't list the features you are offering in a message and expect the reader to pay up. And don't send out free samples, just because it seems the common sense thing to do - 'show the prospect a sample and he’ll buy'. Unfortunately, if you do send out a sample, response usually drops to disastrous levels. Why? Probably because the reader has received your product free of charge, without any commitment, and has therefore little need to read your persuasive letter. So no sale. He may also expect to receive more free issues in the future. So don’t send out free samples. Explain what your product will do for the reader if he replies to your letter and takes out a trial subscription. If you find that task difficult, then you are right: it is very difficult to write that kind of message. It's also very difficult to make a good profit in today's publishing arena. That's why we created this website.

4.      Bribery overcomes buyers’ resistance:  almost everyone uses direct debit payments to pay their utility bills nowadays, so surely they’ll use them to pay for a subscription? The answer is no. Consumers are wary of paying by direct debit or standing order and your response will be much lower than it could be. To succeed, you’ll need to offer a very clever incentive to get your subscriber to sign up. Selling subscriptions by direct debit is a specialist task and few publishers understand how to do it well. Most consumer magazines simply copy each other to avoid creative fees. The result is hopelessly poor response. For B2B products, businesses almost never use continuous authority payments. They pay by invoice.

5.      Beware of option paralysis: many publishers believe that giving a prospect a multiple choice of paying by cheque, standing order, credit card or banker’s draft means they’ll catch more of them because each person has different preferences. The opposite is the case. If you offer options, many of your prospects will stop to consider them - and the sale momentum is lost.

6.  Is marketing the toughest job in your company? Yes, it must be. The marketer maps out the route to profitability by attracting, establishing and monetizing long-term customers. These days, an editor must be able to reach prospects through website, print, email, video and every other kind of media. But he won't know how to sell to all those people. A good marketer understands sales and that a good salesperson can transfer his talent to any product in any market. A sales person knows who is more likely to buy and the best way to close the sales. He recognises good copy and a good headline and the crucial steps inserted in a sales message that are necessary to make a sale. He is the one who counts the money in.

7.      Beware of complainers: an editor who receives a letter of complaint from a reader may try to alter your whole marketing strategy with disastrous results. What may seem to be normal business practice to you, such as inadvertently including some current subscribers in a large mailing, or sending out an invoice before the first copy has been despatched, can bring a direct demand to desist from an editor or director who is on the receiving end of a complaint. Be prepared to resist any interference from senior colleagues. Explain that to change the way you do business will reduce profits.

8.      Resist up-market design: editors and publishers will complain about the ‘cheap look’ of a mailing piece but rarely think to ask ‘was the mailing profitable?’ Remember where your priorities lie - a beautifully produced, expensive mailing is unlikely to make a profit because it costs too much. It’s the message that counts, not the quality of paper and design. Your mailing must make long-term profits, not impress other designers.

9.      Letter or email? A mail pack containing a letter, response form and incentive leaflet will invariably out-perform an email message by a factor of ten to one. Although email broadcasts are fast and cost little to transmit, they are just not as effective. Speed and efficiency are not the best measures, especially in direct marketing, so do a cost analysis first.

10.  Build a market, not profits: few industries plan to turn a profit in the first year. They invest in building a community, a long-term market. So do not expect to get more than the cost of your mailing back in revenue. The publishing industry standard for return on investment for magazines and newsletters is 100% - plan to receive your marketing production costs back and no more. If you are falling below break-even then you must reduce your costs or lift revenue. If you are making too much profit from a promotion, then you’re not promoting widely enough. Send your message to more people.

11.  Always give your best: your first attempt should make your best possible offer to your best available list of prospects. Otherwise, if your promotion doesn’t succeed, you won’t know why. By doing your best, if it doesn’t succeed, you’ll know it’s the concept that isn’t working, not your creative work.

12.  Don’t change a winning formula: once you have a promotion that works, don’t be tempted to change or up-grade it by printing on better paper and using more colour, etc. Keep the magic exactly as you have created it or it will disappear.

13.  Advertising agencies: few agency people understand subscriptions marketing. The mailing pieces they create are costly to print and produce and bring in a poor response. If they do work, watch out for renewals - often you’ll find that a large percentage of new subscribers don’t renew.

14.  List testing: remember to test first in 5,000 segments, asking the list broker for a random selection by postcode. Then increase quantities mailed in multiples of five times that first segment to avoid the expense of rolling out to a largely poor list.

15.  Bill your customers later: if your financial system cannot invoice and collect payment from subscribers and other buyers (rather than dealing only with ‘payment with order’) you are at a big disadvantage. Change things immediately - the extra revenue you receive from new and renewing customers using the ‘please bill me’ form of payment will cover any extra administrative costs incurred.

16.  Renewing customers are your main concern: renewing customers make your business its profits. It is highly dangerous, therefore, to change your renewal series simply because some of the letters do not perform well. If some of your renewal letters do not perform, drop them and bring forward the letters that work well to replace them. Then add new creative work to rebuild your renewal series. A different look for these new letters can work wonders. The number of renewal notices you send out should be determined by the response each receives. If the cost of your final letter is more than covered by the income it generates, then send an extra letter until your return on investment for each letter equals 100%.

17.  The value of creative expertise: buying in expert creative work on new subscriber promotions and renewals is almost always worth paying for. Rather than focus on the cost, focus on the extra revenue a copywriter will bring in. Your subscriber file is your publication or website’s major asset. Ask your expert to search for creative ways to increase your subscriber file’s size, value and profitability.

18.  The profit’s in the detail: take a personal interest in every stage of a promotion’s production and despatch. A promotion is a time-consuming, detailed process and things can and will go wrong at every stage. When responses come in, look through the orders to see what needs to be changed to make the promotion perform better.

19.  Sharing your database: a large subscriber file will earn extra money for your marketing budget. Don’t be cautious about renting out your lists - experienced publishers know the more the list is mailed by others, the more responsive the recipients become - especially to your own mailings.

20.  Be direct: mainstream agencies follow different rules to the direct marketer in almost every respect. They specialise in ‘awareness advertising’ - catching the consumer’s imagination with clever commercials that will be remembered when the consumer makes a purchase. They sometimes run ‘teaser campaigns’ and repeatedly bombard consumers with messages to build awareness. A direct marketer cannot afford to do this. Each promotion you run must bring in measurable, profitable business. Your first promotion will always pull in the most response so never repeat an advertisement or promotion that fails to reach break-even.

21.  Steal ideas: new ideas are rare in subscriptions marketing, so borrow and steal ones that have worked elsewhere. Discover what it is about the technique that makes it successful – paying for the information is far cheaper than testing it yourself - then adapt it for your own publication.

22.  Look for similar products on sale: always choose a medium that is currently working for similar products. Don’t be tempted to create ‘impact’ by being the odd man out - it won’t work. Yes, a promotion in an unusual location will stand out. But it won’t work because your readers won’t see that medium as the right marketplace for your kind of promotion.

23.  Stick with familiar, favourite fonts: today’s computers carry hundreds of wonderful fonts. But you should never use anything except a typewriter face such as Courier New for your direct mail letter. This is because a typewriter face is more personal. People still feel this way even though no one uses typewriters any more. Use other fonts for your coupon or brochure. The more business-like the better. Use Verdana or similar for Internet promotions.

24.  Ask nicely: be personal, friendly, warm but business-like. Remember - you are asking the reader for money. This is a serious business.

25.  Humour is difficult: never use humour or puns in your letter or brochure unless it’s relevant to your publication. Even then it’s dangerous because you’ll need to choose humour that’s universal - and we all have different funny buttons.

26.  Your first words should offer a benefit: discover what your reader wants and offer it in the headline. The headline should be the first thing the reader sees and must communicate an attractive benefit. The opening paragraph should expand upon that benefit. The rest of the letter should explain the features and other benefits of your product and everything it offers, with nothing left out.

27.  Be intrusive, don’t hide what you offer: loose inserts and email-capture pop-up boxes are intrusive. Inserts invariably fall on the newsagent’s floor and into the bin. However the loose insert and the email-capture box are the most inexpensive ways of bringing in subscribers, so create yours with care. But carrying loose inserts in your own publication isn’t marketing - you are merely changing the way your reader receives his publication. Try creating loose inserts that can run in other publications serving the same market. Swap inserts if possible - the financial rewards are enormous.

28.  Colour dazzles: do not use more than two colours for your letter - black for the type and blue for the signature and salutation. Remember the mailing must look business-like. Colourful business mailings won’t get through to the prospect. A mailing works best as a simple, plain envelope, letter and enclosures. Don’t make the mailing look like a holiday brochure (unless you are offering a free holiday as a prize draw).

29.  Design for response: the average designer wants to give your promotion an up-market look. Resist this as it will reduce response and raise costs. The promotion must be response-orientated - every aspect of the design must support your offer and encourage the reader to respond. Resist any diversions.

30.  Deliver what you claim: the words you use in your promotion must be supportable. By all means use a bold claim in your headline (‘Double your investment or your money back’; ‘Win a prize in 30 days or pay nothing’) but be sure to explain both in your body copy and coupon what that claim entails and what happens if the reader doesn’t get what he thinks he has been promised. You will find again and again you need to show the original wording to the subscriber because he thought he was being promised something else. Those who aren’t happy but don’t complain have probably referred back to your original promotion and feel stupid.

31. A free gift has never killed a promotion: no-one in your company will admit to liking ‘gimmicks’ or ‘cheap gifts’ such as cameras, watches or miniature radios - and they will assure you that subscribers won’t like them either. Without fail you will find that your latest idea for an incentive is not at all popular with management. But strangely, if offered, the very same people will change their stance, and happily accept one of your cheap gifts ‘for my child’ or a ‘friend’. Remember - a free gift has never killed a promotion - response invariably lifts.

32.  Keep explaining: your prospect is unlikely to read your promotion as he does a magazine article - he will just scan and dip into it. So feel free to:

·               Repeat your benefits as often as you wish

·               Use words that have impact

·               Exaggerate a little

·               Use teasers to invoke curiosity that can only be satisfied with a purchase

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Peter Hobday

Marketing Best Practice

June 2009