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Thought Provoking

How Leo Tolstoy Applies to Successful Direct Mail

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

In his novel, Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy wrote, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

What Tolstoy was saying is that to be happy, a marriage must succeed on a number of levels including: financial, sexual, how to raise children, in-laws and religion. Every successful couple finds agreement in each of these areas. But an unsuccessful marriage can break apart when there’s disagreement in any one of these areas.

The reasons for happiness are same. The cause of unhappiness is unique.

Can’t we say the same about direct mail? (more…)

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The Cost of Giving Direct Mail Readers Too Many Choices

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

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One thing we can do to improve the profitability of our direct mail is to learn the lessons of a famous jam study.

That’s right. Jam. The stuff we spread over our toast.

In a gourmet market, Professor Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University and her research assistants set up a booth offering samples of Wilkin & Sons jams.

Every few hours, the researchers switched from offering customers a selection of 24 jams to offering a group of only six jams.

Each participating customer – regardless of the number of selections offered – received a $1 savings coupon and tasted an average of two jams.

Here’s the interesting part. (more…)

Tags: direct mail, direct mail copywriting, direct mail response, direct mail strategy, direct mail testing
Posted in Copywriting, Strategy, Testing, Thought Provoking | No Comments »

Defining a Direct Mail Copywriter…

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

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As professional direct mail copywriters, we often take a lot of grief about our work. We’re told our English isn’t proper – maybe even deplorable. We’re too emotional, we keep repeating ourselves and the copy is way too long.

It’s easy to forget what good direct mail copywriting is all about so let me sum it up. Good direct mail copy is copy that works. It achieves its objective.

At its best, good direct mail copywriting is one letter written by one person to one other person. Whether you’re mailing a few hundred letters or millions, direct mail is a personal communication.