Seasonal Marketing

As I started writing my final blog for 2010 with the holidays just a couple of days away, I began to think about how we, as marketers, capitalise on seasonal events such as Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Halloween etc. It’s not just toy stores at Christmas who stand to win from seasonal marketing. There are a whole range of opportunities throughout the year where you can take a seasonal event and turn it to your advantage. With a little lateral thinking, I’m sure most businesses could come up with a promotion to capitalise on a season’s festivities.

I’ve had a little troll through You Tube and the depths of my memory to find some examples of what I’m on about. Here are a few adverts/promotions from companies who have cleverly used a seasonal event which does not really have a direct correlation their product, but they’ve used the time of year to their advantage.

Prescription drugs at Easter:

NHS Easter Bunny Advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpGRFM-8mW4 

End of Financial Year and Pay TV

Foxtel EOFYS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVo39AsXcZ8&NR=1

Lamb and Australia Day

Eat Lamb on Australia Day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqsyXPkG3I&feature=related

Iron Bru soft drink and the World Cup

Irn Bru – world cup 2010 advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S36BCNgH9As

Tea bags at Christmas

PG Tips Tea Christmas advert:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga08Lz5-RLk&NR=1

Citroen Car on Valentines Day

Citroen – Love in London: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q1cv1o_0rQ

There are many more examples where organisations have turned a seasonal event to their advantage. It would be great to hear your stories, so feel free to share any experiences.

What will your marketing calendar look like in 2011?

CraftWrite wishes its blog readers a wonderful  Christmas!
Look forward to bringing you more marketing gems in 2011.

Developing your Web Strategy

There’s no getting away from it, the internet is an integral part of our lives. It’s a seemingly inexhaustible source of information on every subject you can think of. It’s entertainment. It’s expands our social world. It educates. So why is it that so many businesses don’t apply the same strategic thought to their websites that they would apply to other marketing initiatives?

When the web first became mainstream, back in the late 1990s, it was used much like an online brochure. In fact many companies simply uploaded their brochures in PDF format, added a “contact us” email link then left the whole thing well alone. Of course the internet has moved on somewhat since those days. But how do you get the most from your online presence?

Here are seven questions that need to be answered when formulating your website strategy.

1.       Why do you need a website?

It may seem an obvious question. Everybody’s got to be on the web – right? It’s true the majority of businesses will benefit from a web presence. Just be sure of what you need your website to be or do. Some examples could be:

·         Low cost sales channel

·         Interaction with existing customers

·         Generate new sales leads

·         To inform before making a purchase in-store.

2.       Can you update your website easily?

Websites need to be regularly updated, particularly if there is anything seasonal or time specific in your content. Out of date materials will give the impression that your business doesn’t care. Ensure you have someone who can update your site regularly and easily.

3.       Does your website reflect your brand?

Your website is the face of your business as much as a brochure or a sales representative. It needs to reflect your brand on every page. This means representing your brand in imagery, design and copy.

4.       Are you using your website to its full advantage?

A website is an evolving process, and your strategy for its use needs to be reviewed regularly. What may start off as a sales hub may evolve into a customer service centre. Keep track of trends and find out what your customers want.

5.       Is your website easy to navigate?

A rule of thumb is that it should take no more than 2 or 3 clicks to reach any section of your website. Today’s web-savvy consumer will easily tire of pointless clicking and will be quick to move to a competitor site if yours is all too hard. Don’t try and do anything clever with your menu structure. It’s paramount that you keep the navigation simple and intuitive.

6.       Are you analysing your web stats?

Google analytics and many similar packages will work behind the scenes to give you reports on visitors, audience data, length of time on your site, navigation patterns and a whole host of important information. Make sure you use this data to understand your users and to refine and improve your site.

7.       How will people find you online?

With billions of websites accessible at the touch of a button, you need to be easy to find. The best way to do this is by Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), but it can be a tricky process to work your way to the top of the search engines. Another way to be found is through online advertising, either through Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which is Google Adwords or the like. In addition to this you will need to work out a promotional strategy to drive people to your website. More on this in another blog.

If you can answer these questions then you are well on your way to a successful website strategy.

If your web copy needs an overhaul, then share your strategy with CraftWrite and re-vitalise your online communications. Contact Jill Bynon today for a no-obligation quotation: jill@craftwrite.com.au

Marketers vs. Lawyers

I’m no lawyer, but I’ve had to work with a few over the years as part of the sign off process for communication materials and marketing campaigns. I’ve butted heads on more than one occasion, so I thought I’d share some wisdom for getting lawyer approval on your marketing collateral:

Firstly get to know the lawyer or risk manager in your company. Give him/her a general overview of the types of marketing activities you do, so they can understand the bigger picture.

Lawyers deal with dry legal documents all day, so marketing materials are often a welcome distraction from the mundane. It brings out their creative side and some lawyers will try to re-write copy because they want to get involved and not for any legal reason. Make sure any changes are for legal reasons only. Remember you are the marketer.

Make sure you can back up any of the statements you make in your marketing communications. You’ll never get “guaranteed” or “we’re the best…” or “we’re the largest…” past your lawyer if you can’t substantiate it.

Be prepared to compromise. You might need to re-word something slightly, but if it’s not going to destroy the message then don’t worry about it.

Be up front with terms and conditions in your main body copy, as lawyers will try to insert disclaimers and small print on your beautifully designed artwork.

Think through “what if” scenarios and have the answers before you present your artwork to your lawyer. They will always approach your material from a negative point of view. Not because they are negative people, but they are paid to advise the company on potential risks.

Know the rules of what you can and can’t say for your particular product type or industry. You will only irritate a lawyer if you keep making the same mistakes over again.

And lastly, if you think your campaign may be a risky one, get your lawyer involved early on in the design process. It will save you a lot of time, money and energy later on.

If you’re looking for a skilled copywriter with plenty of corporate experience, then consider CraftWrite for your next job. Contact jill@craftwrite.com.au

Building Better Briefs

Why is it pink?

What planet are they on?

I can’t show this to the MD!

Legal would have a fit!

Have these words (or similar) ever crossed your lips when reviewing artwork from your creative agency? If so, then you need to write better creative briefs!

The quality of the artwork your creative agency produces is in direct correlation to the quality of the brief you give them. In this blog, I’ll give you a few things you’ll need to address in your brief so your creative agency can deliver the output you need.

Most agencies will have a briefing document, some more comprehensive than others. Depending on the size of the agency, you may never actually speak to the creative person that will do the work, so your briefing document needs to contain everything the creative team needs to know. Here are the main things that you need to tell your agency:

Background – why are we doing this? What were the drivers that brought us to this point?

What are we trying to achieve? What does the creative piece need to do? (for example:  drive sales, be informative, be inspirational, be innovative, etc). What are your expectations on results?

What are the main points of the message? Provide your agency with some dot points on the key things you need to communicate to your audience.

What is unique or different about the proposition?  This will help your agency build the “big idea” that will be the cornerstone of your communication.

Why will the audience care about it? Help your agency understand your target market.

What are competitors doing? This will help your agency build your unique position.

What are the creative boundaries? How creative can your agency be on this job? There’s a whole scale from “totally out there, never seen before” right down to “minor tweaks on something done before”. You need to guide this process.

Be specific on imagery. If a particular type of image is a no-no, then say so.

Define the brand guidelines. If you have strict rules on how artwork needs to be presented, then you need to share this with your agency.

Tell the agency about any mandatory items for the job: eg: “must contain link to website” or “must mention the closing date of the offer”. Let them know if there’s a certain way you must describe your product or any legal disclaimers that must be included.

Deadlines – let your agency know as soon as possible what your deadlines are so they can put resources in place and schedule your work. (Let them know as early as possible, particularly if time is tight.)

Budget – give your agency some idea of what budget you have for the project. Your budget will also rein in any “expensive to execute” ideas and help keep it real.

All the little details – you need to tell your agency about things such as quantities, sizes, paper specifications and technical information.

I’d love to hear your stories about creative briefs, please share your experiences (no need to name clients/agencies!)

Contact Jill Bynon at CraftWrite with your next copywriting brief!  jill@craftwrite.com.au

Getting the most from your PR

PR is a specialist field and most companies work with a PR agency to manage their media liaison. Here are some tips on how you can get the most from your agency and get your organisation’s staff prepared for both positive and negative media attention.

Share your marketing objectives with your PR agency. If they’re not clear on your company’s direction, they will be unable to guide your PR planning.

Work out a budget for your PR. And be clear on what you will get for your money. Allow your agency enough hours in the budget for media follow up. This is the sales process that will get your stories in the press.

Develop a media activity plan for the year. Ensure that this ties in with your marketing activity for maximum benefit. Consider the newsworthy stories and how you can present these to the media.

Approve the lists of target media for each press release. Ask your agency to share the target list each time they sent out a press release. Highlight the most important contacts to follow up.

Be able to respond to the media requests quickly. Organise media training for a range of people in your organisation, so you are able to provide an expert to talk to the media at any time. Prepare media kits, so you have materials on hand to present key topics.

Be prepared for crises. Disaster can strike at any time, so make sure your company is prepared. Develop a written document in conjunction with your PR agency and make sure key people are aware of it. As a minimum, the document should include:

·         a list of people to contact, with out of hours telephone numbers

·         the procedure for releasing a statement

·         a range of scenarios with possible responses

Measure your success. Be clear on what your PR agency can produce in terms of reporting and agree on the contents of a monthly or weekly report.

Got a story you want to share with the media? CraftWrite can assist you with writing press releases, articles, case studies or media kits. Contact jill@craftwrite.com.au for a chat about how I can help.

The A to Z of Advertising

Here are a few words of wisdom from the world of advertising:

Awareness – creating awareness is an important reason to advertise, but that’s just the beginning of the process. You need to turn that awareness into sales.

Big idea – communicate one single idea to your audience that will make sense to them and drive them to buy.

Call to action – a strong call to action will drive sales.

Desire – your advert needs to create desire to purchase the product. Techniques include discounting, or in the case of a new product, creating the illusion of a “must have” item .

Effectiveness – measure the effectiveness of your campaign. For example, measure brand recognition pre and post campaign.

Free – a strong word in advertising. But customers are becoming more wary and wonder “what is the catch”.

Goals – Be clear on your goals and carefully plan your advertising spend.

Humour – Funny adverts can be very effective. Increasingly adverts are required to entertain in order to gain cut through.

Integrated campaigns – We all consume different media at different times of day, therefore integrated campaigns are important to ensure you connect with your audience.

Jingles – a fantastic way to get inside your consumer’s head and ensure they remember your product.

Know how – Engage the right advertising agency for you.

Leads – Record and process your sales leads quickly.

Memorable – Ensure your advert is memorable. But remember it’s the subject of the advert that needs to be memorable not the advert itself.

Naughty  - Being a little bit risqué in your advertising can pay off. You might attract some complaints, but as long as the target audience are not offended it may be worth the risk.

Online – it’s hard to get cut through with online adverts, so you will need to be extra creative to attract attention.

Press – Printed newspapers and magazines are a gradually dying media as more and more of us source our news and entertainment online. However, for now, press shouldn’t be ignored as part of an integrated advertising campaign mix.

Quantity – get the quantity (frequency) of adverts right to create sufficient awareness. People often need to see an advert several times before taking in the message.

Response mechanism – people respond to adverts in different ways so provide as many different ways to respond as possible – phone, email, in person etc.

Simplicity – keep it simple. We are bombarded with advertising messages all day long and people will not take time to understand something complex.

Timing – get the timing of your adverts right. This could be time of year, time of day or at a trigger point in someone’s lifetime.

Understanding – your advert must be clear and the message understood in a second or two.

Value add – a useful way to drive responses. Eg: Buy now and get an additional XXX.

White space – a design technique to make an advert clean and uncluttered and therefore easy to digest.

X factor -  Sometimes an advert just works, despite not testing well in research groups. Trust your gut instinct and go for it!

Yes – the technique of asking questions that you know the audience will say “yes” to. It’s an effective way of engaging the audience.

Zoo – the use of animals is an effective technique in advertising.  Connect the animal traits to your brand or message and it will help to make it memorable.

Jill Bynon is an experienced copywriter who has written and edited many advertisements. Contact CraftWrite today for help in crafting your ads: jill@craftwrite.com.au

Managing Integrated Campaigns

We all consume different types of media at different times of the day, and for different reasons. This is why single channel advertising campaigns are so rare. With the ever growing number of communication channels it’s important to understand your target market and how to connect with them. Marketers need to be comfortable in producing communications across several mediums. Here are a few tips for managing an integrated marketing campaign:

Be clear on your objectives. It’s easy to get lost on what you are trying to achieve when caught up in the million things you have to do to go live with a campaign. So remind yourself regularly of what it is you are aiming for.

Get organised. By this I mean prepare a series of folders, both electronic and paper so you can keep track of the various rounds of artwork, briefing notes, and calculations for each aspect of your campaign.

Select your media carefully. Don’t assume that TV will be the most effective medium. If your budget won’t allow a sufficient media spend for TV spots, then select a range of channels that will give you your best “bang for buck”.  Depending on your audience, this could be something like internet ads, posters and radio or a clever social media campaign

Ensure the clarity of messaging across all mediums. The big idea may work well in TV, but be less convincing on the web or in direct mail. A good agency will think this through before presenting ideas, but it’s always worth checking with a little home market research on family and friends not connected to the brand.

You don’t have to use the same images for each media channel. So long as there is a strong common message or element that links each communication piece, then it will knit together as a campaign.

Make sure you can measure the effectiveness of each media channel.  Consider different phone numbers for each call to action or a system of codes – whatever works for your business. Be aware, though that TV can drive your web traffic or your yellow pages link. Not everyone will choose to respond in the same way.

Brief all customer-facing staff. With many campaign elements, it’s essential that everyone who deals with customers either on the phone or in person are aware of the campaign and what it is about.

Measure the results of your campaign from all angles. Understand what worked and what didn’t work. Sometimes a campaign can have a surprising effect that you could never have predicted.

Jill Bynon is an award winning marketing campaign manager, turned copywriter. Contact CraftWrite for your copywriting needs across all mediums: jill@craftwrite.com.au

Organising a Memorable Conference (and avoiding death by powerpoint)

Marketers are often challenged with organising the annual sales conference or senior managers’ conference (or both). Here are a few tips on keeping the event interesting and memorable.

Have a theme for the conference, it could be a fun thing, or something more closely related to your business. It can add some entertainment to the event, but at the very least it will provide an objective to your conference.

Mix up the agenda. Try not to have one presentation after another. Break up the day with interactive sessions, break out groups or other activities.

Issue your speakers with a clear presentation topic. Inevitably you will have some formal presentations, so try to ensure it isn’t some rambling wrap up of the year. Having a preview before the conference will allow you to make revisions so everyone stays on topic.

Ask all the speakers to submit their presentations to you well before the conference. Issue everyone with a template to use then edit the slides for readability and consistency of style. This will also allow you to pre-load the presentations onto one computer to ensure a slick transition from one speaker to the next.

Consider your room layout carefully. If space allows, a good way to arrange seating is at round tables (with an open end, so no-one has their back to the speaker.) This is usually called ‘cabaret style’. It can encourage group participation and make the event less formal.

Encourage networking and teambuilding. Organise activities for your delegates so they have to interact with one another. Try to keep this to the theme of the conference so it’s not perceived as a pointless exercise.

Celebrate successes and share strategy. Use your conference gathering to present awards and announce incentive plans. It’s a good opportunity to introduce any new direction for your business and to motivate staff to reach these goals.

Serve good food. It may seem like a minor detail, but lousy food will taint a delegate’s memory of the event. Avoid the curled up sandwich platters and you’ll help create a positive impression.

Introduce a special treat that will make the conference memorable. Choose an unusual location or organise an activity that delegates may not have done before. Try and keep your treat in keeping with your theme. Do whatever your budget or imagination allows.

Organise an external motivational speaker. This is something else you can consider as a treat in order to make your conference memorable.  Ensure your chosen speaker is properly briefed and that they keep to topic otherwise you could leave the audience  thinking “what was that about?”

Avoid getting staff to share hotel rooms to save cost. If you need to organise accommodation, allow staff a room to themselves. Sharing rooms usually causes angst or bickering and you’ll never please everyone.

Remember to get feedback. Ensure no-one leaves without completing a questionnaire about the conference. It will provide valuable insight for next time.

Follow up on any issues raised. Delegates will feel that they have been listened to and that they have a voice if they can see that issues or questions raised during the conference are being addressed.

Don’t forget to have fun with it! It’s always stressful organising events of any kind. But it’s an opportunity to be creative and to really get to know your sales team or senior management people.

There are always lots of communications involved in a conference. Invitations, delegate packs, important information and questionnaires. CraftWrite would love to help you with any copywriting requirements for your next conference. Contact Jill today,  jill@craftwrite.com.au

Naming your New Product –Top Ten Tips

It’s a tricky process coming up with a name for a new product. Here are some things to consider that will avoid landing you in legal trouble, or worse, deter customers from buying it.

1.       Is it easily pronounceable by your target market? You might dream up an exotic sounding French-inspired name, but can it be pronounced by English speakers?

2.       If exporting the product, check the word doesn’t have a silly or offensive meaning in another language.

3.       Check trademark availability before commencing any packaging design. This could be an expensive stuff up if you’ve got to go back to the drawing board.

4.       Think about all the connotations of the new name. Think laterally across generations and cultures. What means one thing to a 20 year old may mean something else to an 80 year old.

5.       Check the name isn’t used for some other product category. You may have the rights to use it, but it will be unhelpful to your marketing efforts if people already associate the name with another product.

6.       Conduct some research among your target market. Remember I-snack 2.0? A very funky clever name but it irritated Vegemite consumers to a point where the name had to be changed after the product was launched.

7.       Does it fit well with other product names in your portfolio? If you have a naming convention in your brand guidelines, you will need to stick to this.

8.       Choose a name that will convey the quality or essence of the product.

9.       Consider the consumer. Will they be proud to say “I’ve got a XXX” without thinking “stupid name.”

10.   Check that the internet domain name is available for your chosen name. You might not be planning to use it now, but it could be important in the future.

Have you had any interesting experiences in naming a product? I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to add your comments below.

Struggling to come up with a product or business name? Contact CraftWrite for help. jill@craftwrite.com.au

The Dos and Don’ts of Exhibitions

Exhibitions can make quite a dent in your marketing budget. There are many costs to take into consideration – stand space, freight, furniture hire, and signage to name a few. So you’ve got to make sure you use your exhibition or trade show attendance as an opportunity to make sales. Here are a few Dos and Don’ts to ensure you attract customers to your stand and make the most of a show:

Don’t expect people to find your stand by chance.
Do advertise that you are going to be at the exhibition. Inexpensive ways to do this are through your customer newsletter, on email footers and on your website. Make sure you are listed in the exhibition guide as well.

Don’t expect your sales team to know what they are doing without getting them involved.
Do arrange a briefing session with those manning your stand. Explain the show offer and details of any competition happening on the stand. Stress the importance of recording leads, so success of the show can be measured and leads can be followed up. Also provide details of stand dismantling arrangements at the end of the exhibition.

Don’t just rely on a few posters and a sales rep on your stand to attract passers-by.
Do try and think creatively as to how you can best demonstrate your product or service. Use all your senses: hearing, sight, taste, touch and smell to develop a memorable customer experience.

Don’t have a collection of laminated A4 sheets stuck to the walls of your stand. Visitors can’t take in the information and the overall look is very poor.
Do use large signage with strong headlines that can be read at a distance. A0 is a minimum size for posters.  You could also consider signage suspended from the ceiling to guide the way to your stand.

Don’t mindlessly collect business cards on your stand.
Do have a lead sheet where you can record a customer enquiry and you can follow up later. If you can make the sale at the stand, make sure you’ve got order pads or credit card processing facilities to make this easy.

Don’t block off the entrance to your stand with furniture and deter passers-by.
Do keep your stand open and inviting. Include a table and chairs where you can sit down and talk business with customers and prospects.

Don’t hand out lots of giveaways. This will only attract freebie collectors to your stand.
Do promote a show special offer. This will attract real buyers and give you real results

Jill Bynon of CraftWrite has many years of trade show and exhibition experience and has probably been guilty of all the “don’ts” on this list at one time or another. This is called learning the hard way! CraftWrite can assist you with writing collateral for your exhibition stand, whether that’s pre-show promotion, stand signage or leaflets. And you can be sure that behind the writing is a lot of insight and experience!  Contact jill@craftwrite.com.au if you're planning for your next exhibition.

Getting the best from your reseller program

Thousands of companies do it – that is engage third parties, such as authorised resellers, authorised dealers, brokers or agents to sell their products and services to the end user. For the purpose of this blog post I’ve opted to use the term “authorised resellers”.

When launching or reinvigorating an authorised reseller program, you will need to demonstrate to existing and new authorised resellers that you are able to support them appropriately.  Authorised resellers are often small or medium-sized businesses and they will be demanding, so you’ve got to be prepared!

Tools of the job

First up you will need to provide sales tools to enable your authorised resellers to go out into the market and sell. Depending on your product these items are likely to include:

·         Authorised reseller logo

·         Brochures

·         Posters

·         Building signage

·         Vehicle signage

·         Uniform or badge

·         Sales scripts

·         Demonstration videos

·         Order pads and other sales paperwork

·         Welcome packs for customers

These items can be provided to authorised resellers via a secure internet site. The print-quality templates can be customised with their own business contact details. You may also wish to arrange an agreement with a printer to ensure quality and consistency of output.

Make them feel part of the family

Ultimately you will achieve higher sales from resellers if they have regular contact and feel supported by your company. Organise induction sessions, regular conferences or training sessions where you can reinforce product knowledge and explain the behaviour expected of them when representing your brand. Also, be sure to set up a dedicated point of contact for your authorised resellers, such as a national reseller support team or a regional manager who can visit them.

Information flow

Regular communications will also assist in boosting sales. Remember authorised resellers may also be selling other products through their business, so you need to find a way to keep your product to the fore. You could organise a regular email bulletin or write a newsletter to communicate company and industry news or interesting market data such as research and survey results.

Protect your brand and company reputation

Authorised resellers are not employees of your organisation therefore they will require a clear set of rules to adhere to in terms of how they represent your brand. This can be presented in a format such as a handbook and reinforced through regular training sessions. The handbook should include:

·         Use of the logo

·         Expected behaviours for face-to-face and telephone selling

·         Adherence to industry codes of conduct

·         Procedures for order processing

·         Disciplinary action procedures

Incentivise sales

Your rewards program will be a key component to driving and boosting sales of your product. Here are a few SMART things to keep in mind when designing a rewards program.

Simple: Ensure your rewards program is easy to understand. Complicated programs will be hard to manage and may discourage reseller participation.

Measurable: Let everyone know how they are tracking in the program and have regular goals (eg quarterly or monthly). This will bring out competitiveness in your resellers and achieve greater buy-in to the program.

Achievable: Don’t set the goals too high. Equally don’t make it too easy either, or else it could end up costing you a lot of money.

Rewarding: Ensure the prizes are something to aspire to and worth working hard for.

Top performers: Recognise your top performers and celebrate their success with other authorised resellers. This will encourage a competitive perspective to your program.

These are just a few of the marketing components to running a successful reseller program. Hope you found them useful.

Jill Bynon has worked with several organisations on authorised reseller programs, providing templates, scripting, promotional activity collateral and communications. Contact Jill at CraftWrite if you’re looking to create or improve your reseller sales and marketing materials. jill@craftwrite.com.au

Managing Direct Mail Campaigns

Direct Mail (DM) is still an underdeveloped sector in Australia, when compared to the US or UK. This means the direct mail, when done well, has a good chance of standing out in the mailbox and getting you results.

There are three main components to direct mail:

1.       Data

2.       Offer

3.       Creative

Of these three, the data and the offer are the most important elements. After all, if your letter never reaches its intended recipient, then the rest is just a waste. And similarly, if the offer is not something that appeals to the target, all the fancy creative in the world is not going to make them respond. The creative element plays its part too. Clever use of headlines, call to action and envelope design can lift your response rates considerably.

DM is a numbers game

Direct marketers are all well aware that 95-99% of their hard work ends up in the bin. It’s important to do your sums, and work out how much your campaign will cost. Then work out a realistic response rate together with the revenue this will bring. Subtract one number from the other and if it’s coming out positive, then you’ve got a business case to proceed.

Never start a direct mail campaign on a hunch. Always, always crunch the numbers before proceeding.

Buying a list

There are a few important things to know when purchasing data. Ask your supplier how it was sourced and how they keep it up to date.  You must use a list of people have agreed to receive offers from third parties. Privacy laws are strict and fines for breaking these laws are steep.

Most list suppliers will categorise their data for you and you can refine your selections to ensure you are targeting the prospects most likely to respond. For the consumer market, lists can be categorised by lifestyle and can give you quite an accurate picture of your prospects. Business lists are often categorised by market sector and job title.

Remember to wash your data list against your existing customer database if you’re trying to attract new customers.

If you’ve purchased lists before, remember to take out prospects that have already requested no further contact from you.

Developing your creative

The more your creative agency understands about your campaign, the more in-tune their creative designs will be.  Ensure you share your objectives, data selection and total budget with them. If you can only afford to print and post a DL envelope and A4 sheet, you must let them know as this will dictate the limitations of the design.

There are a number of areas you can test with your creative including:

·         Headlines

·         Envelope designs

·         Imagery

·         Call to action

Even if you’re just doing a one-off campaign, it’s always worth testing at least one element. For example, send half your list a creative envelope and the other half a plain envelope and see which performs better. Remember to split your data evenly and make sure you are comparing like with like.

The Offer

Consider your direct mail offer carefully. It needs to be attractive to the prospect and not too complicated to understand. Think about testing different offers to see what works best. Provide the prospect with all the details to make a decision and options on ways to respond. Mail, telephone and web cover most preferences.

Managing the mail house

You will need to give your mail house a very detailed brief, particularly if there are several test cells and if there is more than one item in the mail pack. Provide all the details on a briefing document, and include mailing date(s), contents of each pack and the number of recipients. You should also provide details of when and where the printed items will be delivered from.

Ensure your mail house receives your data around 2 weeks before your first lodgement date. This will enable them to run set up files, produce test runs and live proofs for you to approve. You will need to allow for about 10% extra in your print runs to allow for testing and spoilage if a machine jams.   

Undelivered mail

Undelivered mail will come back to you, so consider what return address goes on the envelope. You can expect anything up to 5% of the addresses on your mailing list to be undeliverable. Consider having return mail sent to your mail house to handle for you. Details of undelivered mail, and deceased records need to be fed back to your list supplier. There is a handling cost involved, but better than trying to sort through thousands of mail packs at your desk and having to placate a disgruntled mail room manager.

Weather issues

If you’ve ever collected your mail from the mailbox after a day of rain you’ll know that only the essential pieces are hung out to dry and the rest of the soggy pile goes in the bin. There’s nothing you can do to manage this except for staggering your mailings during rainy periods to lessen the likelihood of being ruined in the rain. Be aware of natural disasters too, and cancel DM to areas ravaged by fire, flood, cyclone or earthquake. There’s little chance of mail deliveries in such times.

Handling responses

Ensure your call centre is aware of the direct mail campaign and is set up with scripts to handle incoming calls. Similarly, make sure your internet site or landing page is ready and has been tested. If customers are likely to reply via mail, then make sure your order processing and fulfilment teams are briefed and ready for action.

Handling complaints

The majority of complaints arising from direct mail are in relation to privacy. Inform your call centre of how the data was procured and how your company will handle “do not contact” records. When targeting consumers, inevitably there may be a few deceased people on your list, triggering distressed calls from relatives.  Equally, prospects will demand to know how you got their details. Equip your call centre to handle these calls respectfully. Capture the “no further contact” records in a list and ensure this is washed against future campaign data.

An overwhelming response

It’s a nice problem to have, but a situation that needs to be handled correctly or else it will leave you with dissatisfied customers. There are a few ways you can manage customer expectations when a direct mail campaign has a larger than expected response:

·         Advise customers via a recorded message when they dial the campaign number

·         Put a note on your internet site, or landing page

·         Divert calls to an overflow call centre

Measuring success

Once the campaign has run its course and all the orders are fulfilled it’s back to number crunching again. There are many measurements you can gather, including:

·         Number of calls

·         Number of sales converted from calls

·         Number of web visits

·         Number of emails

·         Comparison of test cells

It’s essential that you record what you learnt, what worked, what went wrong and how you could do better.

As any direct marketer knows; it’s all about test and learn, then test and learn some more!

CraftWrite applies years of campaign management experience to direct mail copywriting. Contact Jill Bynon today about improving your response rates with better DM copy: jill@craftwrite.com.au

Improve your proof reading skills

Any piece of writing about your business is a reflection of your brand, so it needs to be polished and correct. Copy that contains poor spelling and bad grammar gives of the impression of laziness and lack of intelligence, which I’m sure, is never the intention of the writer.

Try out your proof reading skills on the paragraph below. How many errors can you spot?

Its important to poof read you’re work. While you may have reading it many times alraedy, characters can move around during the design proces, leaving your work looking shabby and potentially damaging to your brand,

There are 7 errors in the paragraph above. Did you find them all?

Improve your proof reading skills by using the helpful pointers below. Find and correct errors and typos before your copy is published.

Check Headlines

Headlines are the first thing to be read by your audience but are so often ignored in the proof reading process. Make a point of reading your headlines and checking for errors.

Call phone numbers

Don’t let your hard work go to waste and print the wrong phone number. It not only makes your organisation look silly, but can be a real pain to manage if large numbers of customers start calling the wrong number. Call all the phone numbers in your copy to ensure they are correct. (It’s also a good way to find out if the people answering calls are aware of any potential promotion etc. I’ll cover more on stakeholder management in another blog post)

Read the text backwards

Reading backwards is a great way to check for spelling errors. When we read, particularly if we’ve read something several times, our minds alter words for us and we understand the sense of the text without concentrating on each individual word. Reading backwards will allow you to look at each word and check the spelling.

Read the text aloud

Read your copy aloud and check for punctuation. Pay attention to your breathing as you do this and you will naturally see where commas and full stops are required.

Enlist the help of someone who’s not read the copy before

We all suffer from blindness to our own mistakes after reading and re-reading a document. So ask someone who’s not been involved in your project to proof read it for you. Just make sure they have a good grasp of spelling and grammar! This is also a perfect way to conduct a final “sanity” check over the document and ensure it all makes sense.

Explain acronyms

Check any acronyms have been explained. If not, then consider whether the target audience can reasonably be expected to know what they mean. If in doubt, then put the explanation in brackets after the first occasion the acronym is used.

Avoid industry jargon

It depends on your audience as to how much industry jargon you can use.  Jargon should be limited to copy targeted at those in your industry.  In most cases plain English is the best option for communication of any kind. If you are unsure if an industry jargon term will be understood, then the best solution is to find another word.

Know your apostrophes

Miss-use of the apostrophe is becoming more prevalent in the English language, and is a pet hate of mine. If you need a recap on the apostrophe’s use, this link is a handy reminder.

Spell in the correct language

Obviously you need to correct any spelling bloopers in your copy.  But also consider your audience’s nationality.  Commonly used words like “organise”, “centre” or “specialise” can aggravate British or Australian audiences when written as “organize”,” center” or “specialize”. Computer spell checkers often default to “English US” language. Check this and alter your document to the appropriate version of English to avoid inadvertently annoying your audience.

CraftWrite provides copywriting and editing across a variety of mediums. For help to produce top quality copy that will make your brand shine, contact Jill Bynon on jill@craftwrite.com.au