Too often, we receive direct mail that’s offensive to the eye.

Big blocks of text crowd the page. Narrow left and right margins choke the life from the words. And small sans serif type makes the copy difficult to read.

Visually, these letters are uninviting.

Tips to Increase Readership

Graphic designers may love the look of grey-colored type, but readers need text printed with high contrast. Illustrations and graphics can enhance a mailing, but when overused they pull the reader’s eye in so many directions that it’s virtually impossible

What might appeal to someone’s sense of design doesn’t necessarily help the reader. And with only a few seconds to capture the reader’s attention, any distraction to the eye flow can doom the mailing.

Even when you mail award-winning copy with an offer that meets the recipient’s every need, few people—even those who respond to your mailing—will read the entire direct mail letter. But when you follow a few proven techniques, you can lead more readers to the letter’s most persuasive points and direct them to the call for action.

Here are some basic techniques that you’ll want to see included in your next mailing. They will increase your readership and help you achieve a more profitable campaign.

1. Make the letter look like a letter. People know what to do with a letter—read it. Don’t confuse them with something that looks like a brochure, a flyer or some creative hybrid approach. Most recipients will recognize your letter as being part of a mass mailing, but providing the perception of a personal letter will typically increase results.
2. Provide lots of space for your left and right margins and only justify the left margin—flush left, ragged to the right.
3. Use a serif type for your letter copy. (Serif type has little “feet” at the bottom (Courier, Times New Roman and Georgia are examples.) Virtually every newspaper, magazine and published book uses serif type because has proven to enhance reading flow and reduce eyestrain. If you want it read, use a serif type.
4. Always indent your paragraphs. Studies show that indented paragraphs “catch” the eye moving down the page and make the letter more readable.
5. Single space the letter and put a double space between paragraphs.
6. Don’t end a page with a complete sentence. Look at your newspaper. To finish practically any article, you have to turn the page and that’s exactly what you want the reader to do with your letter—keep them turning pages until they reach your call to action.
7. When using “handwritten” notes in the margin and/or underlining, be sure the letter signer uses the same pen used to sign the letter. This is one letter, written by one person to one other person. Make it believable.
8. Letters printed in a faux handwriting font have their purpose but keep them short. It’s a struggle to get through four pages of handwritten text.
9. Use nothing smaller than 10-point type (except for disclaimers). For an older audience, you’ll want to use a larger 12-point type.

Direct mail isn’t rocket science. If you’re going to persuade the reader to respond, he or she needs to read your letter—or at least its main points. No one wants to work their way through a letter they didn’t even ask for so keep it simple, stay on point and make it easy to read.

On average, the reader takes no longer than 11 seconds to decide whether to read or trash your letter. Research by Professor Siegfried Vogele found that during this 11-second preview, the reader’s eyes fix only on pictures and headlines—never on the body copy. Knowing this, you can use illustrations to draw the reader’s attention to your most persuasive copy and lead them to the call to action.

1. Typically, readers follow the classic pattern of reading left-to-right, top-to-bottom, but eye flow can be redirected using “pointing devices” with a graphic element. For example, when you place a graphic of people in your letter, the reader’s eyes will follow the eyes of the subjects in the picture. Use this by pointing the subject’s eyes toward your copy.You can use practically any “pointing device” to direct the reader’s eyes. With an illustration showing a model wearing a man-style tie, for example, the eyes of readers will follow the tie right down to its pointed end—and to the copy below.
2. Most illustrations need a caption. To get the caption read, put it below or to the right of the illustration, not above or to the left of it.
3. With 2-page layouts—as in a brochure—you can expand what the reader sees by placing color pictures to the left and black-and-white pictures to the right. Warmer colors will draw the reader’s eyes across the page revealing more of your message. When using pictures with and without people, put the people pictures to the left to encourage the reader’s eyes to go across the page.

People love a good story especially when it’s about them. To increase readership, you want to:

1. Include a salutation. You wouldn’t start a conversation without a greeting so include a salutation with your letter. And assign title codes. There is nothing more impersonal than using the recipient’s full name in the salutation. (“Dear Mr. Hugh Chewning,” for example. It’s either “Dear Mr. Chewning” or “Dear Hugh.”) When you can’t assign a title code, use a default—“Dear Member,” “Dear Homeowner” and “Dear Friend” are examples—but say “hello” and welcome the reader before launching your sales pitch.
2. Have the copy written as if it’s a one-on-one conversation between the letter signer and the recipient. Direct mail is an “I” to “you” medium. Not “us” and “we.” People are more comfortable with an individual than a large, impersonal organization, so keep it personal and they’ll keep reading.
3. Personalize the copy with the reader’s name and any other pertinent information that’s available. Properly used, the cost of adding personalization to the letter will almost always pay for itself. And when you’re mailing to customers or donors, recognize the recipient as such early in the copy.
4. Give special attention to the letter’s first paragraph and the P.S. Typically, these areas get the most attention so use them to state the problem your offer will solve, how the reader will benefit by responding and to issue your call to action. If they read nothing else, they’ll know how to respond and why they should respond.
5. Don’t worry about using incomplete sentences, contractions or a preposition at the end of a sentence. Write in a conversational style as if the letter signer is speaking directly to the recipient.
6. Create an image for the reader. If the reader can see him or herself in the situation you describe, they’ll take an interest and continue to read.
7. If you can’t spell a word or need to look up its meaning, don’t use it. You want to give the reader a “warm and fuzzy” feeling not impress him or her with your vocabulary.
8. Don’t let the reader stumble on in-house abbreviations. When using the term for the first time, spell it out. For example, rather than beginning a letter with “ACLU” you would write, “American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).” You’ll lose all momentum if the reader must turn back to the start of the letter to understand your meaning.

The more you create the perception that your direct mail letter is a personal communication from the letter signer to the recipient—and make it easy to read—the more readership you will have.

And the math is simple—greater readership equals higher response.

Getting every possible response is always worth the effort of giving added attention to the package’s layout, its use of graphics and its copy style. Increase readership of your letter and you and your organization will profit.

Direct mail is a sales medium. We use it to sell ideas, products and services. And like any other form of sales, its success is based on trust.

Regardless of how much the prospect may value your offer, if he or she doesn’t trust the person attempting to make the sale, it’s not going to happen.

In direct mail, our salesperson is the letter signer. And to establish trust we use testimonials, money-back guarantees and clear, straightforward language.

By definition, an asterisk “indicates omission…”

An asterisk signifies that the claim being made isn’t complete. There are qualifications and/or limitations to what you’re being told. In blunt terms, an asterisk says that you’re not being told the whole truth.

Recently, I received a mailing with the headline “Save $1,000.*”

Seeing the asterisk, I read this headline as “Save $1,000? Maybe.”

The headline makes a big claim but the asterisk warns me that I’m not getting the full story. Continuing with the letter, I encountered three more asterisks before I completed the first paragraph.

Where’s my trust level now?

I’ve never been impressed by fast-talking salespeople who oversell and promise something they can’t deliver. If there are restrictions or qualifications to become eligible for an offer, just say so in clear, straightforward language.

Full disclosure is not only a legal responsibility and a matter of conscience, it’s good salesmanship.

I expect that on more than one occasion you’ve walked away from a sale because you sensed the salesperson was more interested in making a sale than giving you all the information you needed to make a good buying decision.

Isn’t this the same message an asterisk delivers to our readers?

There will be times when using an asterisk to direct the reader to the disclosure is your best choice. But too often we use an asterisk because it’s easy. All we need to do is insert an asterisk and drop the legal department’s comments into an endnote and we’re done.

But typically, there’s a more effective way.

• When making a statement that requires a comment, write, “You’ll find the full details and limitations below.” You’ll still have the endnote, but you’ll avoid the asterisk.
• In a four-page letter, try to work the mandatory copy into page two or three where it won’t disrupt the flow of the letter.
• Rather than try to hide the legalese, see if you can find a way to feature the disclosure copy. Be upfront and let the reader know, “Here are facts that you need to know.” People want to do business with people they trust—someone who doesn’t hide information concerning the sale.

Recently, I attached a Post-It note to the letter’s first page and wrote:

As you might expect, with an offer this good—and discounts this huge—there are certain conditions that apply. You’ll find complete details printed on the blue insert I’ve enclosed.

You may not like this particular idea and I can’t say how well it worked because we didn’t test it separately. But my point is that we can meet regulatory and legal requirements without littering our copy with asterisks.

Here are a few examples:

• Often we see an asterisk pointing to a disclosure that reads, “For new customers only.” Instead, try adding copy to the letter that says, “The savings and benefits offered are reserved exclusively for our new customers.” Now, the mandatory copy adds exclusivity to the offer.
• If the offer is only good for a limited time, don’t hide it in the disclosure. Turn the “limited time” into a deadline to respond and add urgency to the offer.
• Using diet products as an example, you often see “With diet and regular exercise” added to the disclosure. But rather than put this into the disclosure, include letter copy that says, “With regular exercise and proper diet, you can see amazing results with XYZ product.” You’re communicating the same message but the qualifying statement is now part of the benefit.
• When promoting Certificates of Deposit rates, financial institutions often add “New Money Only” to the disclosure. Instead, try putting this into your copy: “Because we’re looking to raise money to make new home loans, this special rate is limited to new money—money that’s not already deposited with the bank.” This not only gets rid of an asterisk, it also opens the offer to existing customers.

There will be times when directing the reader to the disclosure with an asterisk is still the best approach. Sometimes there’s just no better way to communicate mandatory information. But don’t make it the first thing you try because more often than not, you can make better use of the disclosure information in the letter copy.

Including required information in your letter copy can increase the believability of your offer and build trust. But using an asterisk to point to a disclosure in eight-point type can only hurt the mailing’s creditability.

________________________________________

*To kill the perfect offer, use an asterisk in the headline and letter copy.

When I started my direct marketing career, I wanted to be a copywriter. Copywriters were the agency “hotshots”; it seemed like they were the star attraction.

Yet my mentor told me that the people of most value to the agency were direct mail “generalists.” Taking his advice, I spent the next six years learning how to initiate, develop and manage successful direct mail campaigns.

I studied list selection, graphic layouts, the letter’s structure, print production and lettershop capabilities. And I gave special attention to what and how to test.

Yet today, most of my income comes from direct mail copywriting.

Over the years, I’ve tested against other copywriters who wrote fancier words, enjoyed reputations that are more widespread and commanded larger fees.

And I freely admit that others write copy that’s richer, less choppy and often, they select particular words that I wish I had thought to use.

Yet when testing head-to-head against these higher-profile writers, my packages regularly generate higher profits.

It isn’t because of the words I choose. It’s because of the lessons I learned long ago.

An Unbeatable Advantage

Before putting a word on paper, I invest time to learn about the mailing lists that will be used, review current and past mailing packages, study test results, and ask
about the printer’s and lettershop’s capabilities. And once the copy is accepted, I work with the graphic designer to review the layout, the graphics, and the selected font, plus do little things like make sure paragraphs are indented and pages break in mid-sentence.

Giving attention to the details is a nearly unbeatable advantage.

Yet too many agencies, clients and managers fail to give their copywriters these practical advantages.

Today, many agencies have consolidated into mega-agencies. And as they grow larger, they tend to become more stratified.

A team leader—usually an account executive—is assigned to every account. Other team members work on the campaign strategy, select the lists, and handle design, production or back-end analysis.

Too often, the copywriter isn’t brought into the picture until after other team members have developed and released the creative brief. Essentially, the copywriter becomes an order-taker.

It’s More Than the Words

But to do our best work for the team, the client and the organization, copywriters need to be direct mail people first and wordsmiths second. For example:

• List Selection. The best copywriters understand that good list selection is more important than the words they put on paper. You can rehash common statements like “The list is 300% more important than copy,” but in fact, the list is infinitely more important. Even if you have the all-time world’s greatest package, if you mail it to the wrong people, you’ll fail. It’s that simple.To be successful, the copywriter needs to know which lists work and which don’t, and have access to all available demographic and behavioral data. A copywriter should also get to know the list brokers, study the “data cards” and ask to be included in new list announcements.
• Graphic Design. You want your copywriter to understand how graphic design affects readership and, thus, how it affects response. He or she should work closely with your design team and understand that it’s in the designer’s DNA to make things pretty and want to win awards. It’s the copywriter’s job to fight for a layout that encourages readership and directs the recipient to take a specific action. Pretty isn’t important. Results are. Let the designer do his or her thing with your collateral pieces, but for anything being measured by its response, the direct mail people—including the copywriter—should have the final word.
• Production. Encourage your copywriter to meet with your printer and lettershop, and include him or her in meetings with new vendors. Copywriters don’t need to be production experts, but they do need to know the full capabilities of the printer and lettershop. Otherwise, they can’t take advantage of the technology and unique capabilities that they can use to drive results.
• Back-end Analysis. Direct mail isn’t “fire and forget.” Share results of past mailings with the copywriter so he or she can take advantage of your new findings and avoid repeating past mistakes.

If you need an outside copywriter to sign a nondisclosure agreement, do it. If you don’t want to share specific results, assign an index to the numbers. If you can’t trust the copywriter with this, why are you using him or her anyway?

And for the record, once a piece mails to thousands, if not millions, of people, it’s no longer confidential, so give a sample to your copywriter. (A pet peeve.)

Whatever your cause or whatever you’re selling, you can achieve greater results by making the copywriter a full participating member of the account team. Bring him or her into the job early in the campaign’s planning stages and you’ll get better results.

Life doesn’t have to be complicated. Empower your copywriter and enable him or her to deliver greater profits. After all, higher profits keep the client and/or the board of directors happy, pay the bills and will give you a good night’s sleep.

Some of the best training I’ve had for becoming a direct mail copywriter came when I sold magazines door to door as a teenager.

I quickly learned that not every homeowner welcomed me. Some would not even come to the door, some would close the door in my face and others would listen but not buy.

Soon, I learned to how to better my odds. Each time I approached a house, I gathered all the available information on the homeowner and developed a plan before knocking on the door.

My marketing “data” came from what I could see in the homeowner’s front yard. Were there toys in the yard, indicating children lived there? Was a newspaper delivered to the home? Were there indications that someone in the house played sports? Was there a fancy car in the driveway or a well-cared-for garden?

By gathering and analyzing this information, I could define my offer—in this case, which magazines I would present to the homeowner. I had news magazines, magazines for sports fans, children, expectant mothers, car fanatics, and gardeners—literally pages and pages of magazines to choose from—and by using my data to select which ones to show to the homeowner, I found that I could greatly increase my sales.

In effect, I was targeting my market.

When homeowners did come to the door, their eyes would give me a quick scan before they decided whether to give me even a minute of their time.

But as the door inched open a little wider, I would quickly give them just enough information for them to listen to what I said next.

Typically, I would start by briefly describing “magazines their neighbors had just ordered.” Then, I would focus the discussion on the magazines I thought—based on my collected data—would be of most interest to the homeowner.

My sales skyrocketed.

Then I learned not to talk about the magazines, but instead, to describe what the homeowner could get from the magazines—inside information on their favorite sports team, timely tips on how to increase their garden’s harvest, or how the homeowner’s discussions with friends and coworkers could improve with easy-to-read information about the latest news and developments.

There were also words I learned to avoid, such as “reading” and “learning,” because the homeowner could consider these as work. I found it was much better to talk about “seeing,” “discovering” and “having ideas come to your home.”

And I would never walk away without asking for the order.

After explaining that there was no risk to trying a new magazine because they could cancel the order at any time, I would ask, “For how many months do you want to try the magazines?” rather than “Do you want to place an order?”

Once I made the sale, I didn’t linger. I said “Thank you,” and went to the next house.

More times than I care to remember, I got the door shut in my face. But when this happened, I tried to learn from my mistakes, improved my approach and moved on to the next home.

Today, as direct marketers, we certainly have more sophisticated approaches to gather information, but in reality, our sales approach—whether we’re working online or with direct mail—is much the same as it was when I was a teenager selling magazines.

Regardless of the medium, we all:

• Share the same objective—making the sale.

• Must show prospects how they will benefit when accepting our offer. We don’t sell subscriptions; we offer information that makes the prospect’s life more interesting, enjoyable and profitable. We don’t sell insurance; we offer security, protection and peace of mind. We won’t even promote a cure for cancer, but we will give the prospect hope that their family can be free of its suffering.

• Use easy-to-understand language to capture the reader’s attention, create interest, show how the offer benefits the prospect, and instruct the prospect to take a desired action.

• Evaluate success by measuring our return on investment.

• And when things don’t go our way, we listen to our customers and adjust our offer so that it better meets their needs.

Selling via direct mail or online today doesn’t need to be any more complicated than when I sold magazines as a teenager. After all, the objective remains the same—cost-effectively persuading the prospect to take a desired action.

Walking door to door selling magazines proved to be great training for my direct-marketing career. I just didn’t know it at the time.

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?

Every successful direct mail package is alike while an unsuccessful package can fail in its own way.

All successful mailings are the result of thoughtful list selection, a powerful offer, persuasive copy, an effective format and good timing.

Yet a mailing can fail when it lacks any one of these characteristics. We can have the most powerful offer and persuasive copy, for example, but when delivered to the wrong audience, it fails.

Successful direct mail isn’t rocket science.

We don’t need a new book with a clever title, a new buzzword or a 3-hour seminar to tell us what makes direct mail work. It’s the same today as it was 25  years ago. And it’s what will make direct mail successful 25 years from now.

Good list selection. An unbeatable offer. Persuasive copy. And an efficient format. All delivered to the right person at the right time.

Miss any one of these ingredients for success and your mailing fails. But each of them right and your mailing, like Tolstoy’s thoughts on a happy family, will enjoy far more success.

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.

Of those shoppers seeing the larger display, 60 percent stopped to sample the jams. Yet when researchers switched to the smaller display, only 40 percent of shoppers stopped for a taste.

But of those sampling from the smaller display, 30 percent decided to buy jam while only 3 percent of those confronted with larger display purchased a jar.

The display with more choices drew the largest crowd but customers presented with fewer choices bought more.

Researchers then repeated the study using a wide variety of products – everything from chocolate to speed dating. And each time, regardless of the product tested, offering fewer choices to the prospective customer resulted in more sales.

Professor Iyengar concluded, “In reality, people might find more and more choices to actually be debilitating.” And while it may be too simple to conclude that offering lots of choices is bad, we shouldn’t assume that providing more choice is always better.

What does this have to do with our direct mail?

Look through your mailing samples – particularly at the response device. We’ve all seen response devices from nonprofits that suggest five, six and even seven asking amounts. And the offers we get to bundle cable, phone and Internet service can be paralyzing.

Offering too many choices can immobilize the reader’s decision-making process and cost us a sale.

Taking the lessons from Professor Iyengar’s study, let’s make it simple for our reader to respond. For nonprofits, three suggested contribution amounts plus an “Other” option is more than enough. But whether asking for a contribution or a lead or a sale, keeping it simple makes it easier for the prospect to respond and feel good about it.

Littering surveys with too many questions is no different. Surveys are a great way to involve the reader with our mailing but we need to keep it simple.

You’ve probably have received a telephone call asking for your participation in a survey. You’re interested in the subject so you say “yes” and 20 minutes later, you can’t wait for the call to end.

Let’s not make the same mistake with our mail.

Remember, when we include a survey in a mailing, its purpose isn’t to gather information, it’s to encourage a response!

Limit yourself to five or seven questions and allow the reader to move quickly to the order form.

And finally, don’t accept the argument that the reader needs more choices to understand the offer’s full value. Instead, accept this as a challenge to do better list selection. Better segmentation of your mailing list will reduce the need to overwhelm the reader with too many choices.

We can all learn from the jam research. Keep it simple, make it easy for the reader to respond and the result will be better than your morning toast.

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.

Some of the best training I’ve had for becoming a direct mail copywriter came when I sold magazines door-to-door as a teenager.

Each time I approached a house, I developed a plan before knocking on the door. Then, if I could entice the homeowner into opening the door, I quickly gave them just enough information that they wanted to listen to what I said next.

Not every homeowner was a prospect. You took your clues from what you would observe about the homeowner. Was there evidence of children at home . . . indications that someone in the house played sports . . . a newspaper or fancy car in the driveway. You took advantage of all the information you had on the prospect and with this “data,” developed your offer – or which magazines you would talk about.

Then, after showing the homeowner how they would benefit from having these magazines – I never mentioned “reading” the magazines because that might be considered work – it was time to ask for the order.

Never, never, ever did I walk away without asking for the order. And once I got it, I didn’t linger. I said “thank you” and went to the next house.

What we do as direct response copywriters isn’t that much different.

We’re not artists, authors and certainly not general advertisers. Pure and simple, we’re salespeople and we sell benefits.

We don’t sell insurance. But we do sell security, protection and peace of mind. And a good direct response writer doesn’t sell subscriptions. Instead, we offer information that makes the prospect’s life more interesting, enjoyable and profitable. We won’t even sell you a cure for cancer. But we will give you the hope that you and your family can be free of its suffering.

Awards, pretty packages and beautiful designs don’t measure our success. Net profit does.

We don’t always write in complete sentences but we do communicate in language that the reader understands. And for some of our fundraising packages, our graphics can be so “elementary” that our artist wants to hide our direct response work when his advertising clients visit the studio.

Yet, better than anyone else, we motivate people to take a desired action.

We can prove it too because we measure our results. When we segment our mailing lists differently, revise the offer, rewrite the letter, change the graphics or test a new format, we know exactly how it affects the mailing’s profitability.

A pretty package with moving parts or a creative award won’t save us. Because we document, analyze and record the results of every mailing, our successes and failures are on display for everyone to see.

And when our ideas don’t work, we learn from them. And when they do, we capitalize on them. This is what makes us professional direct response marketers.

Is there a moral or lesson here?

You can decide. But I do hope there’s a reaffirmation of why we can be proud of what we do.

Let me know what you think. I welcome your thoughts.

Hugh

P.S.  If you have a question or comment about this post or direct mail in general, please e-mail me. I’m happy to help anyway I can. Thanks.

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The topic is “Six Sense Technology.” I don’t know how long the URL will be active so check it out today and let me know what you think.