Business Building Ideas
October 2006, Volume 1, Issue 9

Dear Friend:

Now is the time of year for State Fairs – where the biggest and the best are shown off by their owners who relish in the fruits of their labors. People travel for miles to see these “creams of the crops” – the biggest and best grab everyone’s attention. Does this ring true in all facets of life? In this issue of BBI, we’ll show you that there are different things you can do, creatively speaking, with direct mail to grab your prospect’s attention. You do great work, and we want to help you let the world know.

- Mitch Lapides, Executive Editor
  HomeTech Business Building Ideas

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In This Issue

Feature Article

Direct Mail - Creatively Speaking!

You see direct mail every day. Some pieces grab your attention, but most end up in the trash. What IS it about the piece that grabs your attention? Most often it is the “creative” elements of that piece that keeps you from throwing it away. Today we are going to look at “creative” relative to direct mail and explore ways for you to use “creative” to grab your prospect’s attention when you distribute your own direct mail campaigns.

What is "creative" anyway?
Your direct mail campaign’s “creative” is essentially how you are pulling together your offer for distribution to your list. (See last month’s newsletter - BBI September 2006 - for more on developing your list and your offer.) While creative is usually developed after your list and offer have already been identified, creative can very easily make or break the overall success of a direct mail campaign.

Creative development is important to every direct mail campaign.
You may believe that you are not developing creative if you are simply sending a letter offering a discount to your current customer base. Not true. You may believe that since you did not use a high-priced design firm that you are not really developing creative. Not true. Some of the most basic ways to package your offer to your list present some of the greatest “creative” challenges. If the person who receives your letter never opens it, they will never see your offer. You need to ask yourself, “How can I creatively get this otherwise simple envelope opened by its recipient?”

Try these creative ideas for getting your letters opened:

  • Put your offer on the front of your envelope. Everyone first looks at their name on the envelope. If you put your offer here, the recipient gets a taste for what’s inside the envelope.
  • Put messaging on the back of the envelope. Further engage the recipient with why they should open the envelope.
  • Use a different colored envelope. If 4 out of 5 pieces of mail are in white envelopes, the 5th (or different colored envelope) will certainly grab the recipient’s attention.

A simple letter is a creative challenge.
Your envelope has been opened, but how do get your message read? Here, again, the creative treatment of your offer influences whether or not the recipient actually reads your letter. Bolding, underlining or using a different color for important key words or phrases in your letter can really capture the attention of the reader. Short paragraphs with bulleted items also make the letter less imposing and friendlier to read.

Tip: Probably the most successful creative addition to an otherwise simple letter is a Johnson Box. Developed by Frank H. Johnson, the “Johnson box” is typically a line or two of text in a box-shaped outline of asterisks or outlined in a tinted box. The Johnson box depicts the key message of the direct mail offer and often includes the call to action.

Think outside the box.
Creative includes how your message is packaged, not just how it looks. Being creative in how you package your offer can significantly improve the success of your offer. For example, I once heard of a firm that had a software product that people tried for 30 days before they had to buy it. This firm then called the people they sent the trials to to help them use the software for the 30 days – hopefully encouraging them to want to buy the software. Through this process, this firm came to understand that while many people were asking to try the software, not many were actually opening the trial once it was mailed to them. When this firm asked why the trial was not being opened, quite often the response was because the trial was buried under papers on the requestor’s desk.

The marketers at this firm had to really think about this. There seemed to be nothing wrong with either the list or the offer in this instance, it was the creative that was letting them down. If the way the trial was packaged really stood out, they believed the trial would be opened. The marketers at this firm developed a “wedge-shaped” box to mail the trial in. If the requestor tried to pile papers on top of the trial when they received it, the papers would just slide off the wedge-shaped box and expose the trial. Once they changed the shape of the box, the marketers saw an increase in the number of requestors trying the product and purchasing the software!

Packaging your offer a little differently can really make your offer stand out. Tubes, boxes, non-traditional sized envelopes are all creatively different ways to package an offer and can easily be integrated in to direct mail campaigns.

Be creative!
Remember that every direct mail campaign has a creative aspect to it. Spending time developing this creative can really influence the overall success of each direct mail campaign. For more, please check out the additional resources below.

Additional Resources

HomeTech ADVANTAGE Tip

Using the “Right Click” Edit Item Feature

An easy way to edit an estimate line item is to access the EDIT ITEM feature using the “Right-Click” menu. Use the EDIT ITEM feature when you want all line item data displayed in a single window to edit at the same time.

For more detailed information on using the “Right-Click” EDIT ITEM feature, Click Here.

Did You Know?

Construction material prices for single-family residential units rose 7% in 2004 and another 6.9% in 2005, more than double the increases in the Consumer Price Index for the same periods. Nevertheless, the single-family residential segment’s material costs rose at only about half the rate of increase in heavy construction activities. In the 1st quarter of 2006, single-family residential costs increased at an annual rate of 5.7% while costs for heavy construction declined.

Source: Associated General Contractors of America, March 2006

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