A question from someone who was kind enough to read my latest Deliver column, followed by my answer:

Q: Is an order form equally important when it’s a nonprofit arts group selling tickets? I always push for including a user-friendly order form or invoice for subscription brochures, but am getting increasing pushback.  Clients feel they’re unnecessary, take up space, people go on the internet anyway, so why bother? I’m assuming we should include them for the same reasons you cite for reply cards. I don’t have pushback about using reply cards when requesting a donation, but subscriptions are much more complicated so order forms take up more space.

A: The most responsible answer to any "what works best" question is, of course, test. That said, my own experience is that you should ABSOLUTELY include a reply card, invoice or order form (I'll just say "reply card" from here), even when people can respond online. My reasons:

• Even the technologically adept follow the course of least resistance. If checking YES on a card and dropping it in the mail is faster and easier than logging on, people will do it. We recently mailed a subscription offer for an email newsletter. Online sign-up was easy, yet half of the response came from people who checked YES on the reply card and snail-mailed it.

• The reply card does more than enable snail-mail and phone replies. It is often the first looked-at piece. A good one impels readers into the other materials. They may reply online, but the reply card set the sale in motion. The trouble is, if that's happening, it's invisible to you and the client. Only split testing will tease it out.

• People often discard the rest of the mailer and hang onto the reply card to revisit later. Omitting the card takes that option away, possible at the cost of sales. Again, the card may drive them to the web. But with no card to hang onto, they may do nothing at all.

Some quick notes on split tests (at the risk of repeating what you already know):

To split-test your mailings, send half of your list a package with the card and half without, and see if there is a difference in response over time and over multiple tests. Over time and over multiple tests, because flukes happen. Allow time for all responses to drag in, and be wary of drawing a firm conclusion from one or even two tests. I'd also be wary of generalizing for all clients based on test  results for one. And, be wary of carving test results in concrete. I'd retest from time to time, as behaviors sometimes change.
 
 
Steve Cuno’s newest Deliver magazine column

Eons ago, when I’d been hired to work on the client side, my new employer’s ad agency invited me for a tour. The umpteenth person who had to feign being happy to meet me was the copy chief. This fellow’s ego would have fit easily inside a retail giant’s main warehouse (yeah, yeah, I know, look who’s talking), so the account executive who introduced us decided to needle him. This day’s needling took the form of introducing him as “the guy who writes those reply cards in direct mail.”

While they yucked it up at the intended slight, I smiled inwardly at the unwitting betrayal of their lack of knowledge… (Read the rest of this article by clicking here now.) 
 
 
Scientific American just emailed me a survey. An avid reader, I was eager to respond. (I admit that I was also eager for an excuse to take a momentary break from the project I was working on at the time.) 

A survey question asking readers to opine as to whether a gift offer would motivate them to subscribe troubled me. That’s no way to determine direct marketing strategy. So, I emailed them. Yeah, like they care what I think.

I sent the email to the link they provide for “feedback or concerns.” It bounced back as “undeliverable.” 

Not that my effort in writing it was wasted. My unasked-for advice might be useful to others doing market research, so I have pasted it below. If you know anyone at Scientific American whom you think might be interested, please send him or her a link to this post.

—Steve Cuno 

My would-be advice to Scientific American

May I make an observation about your survey questions regarding gift offers? 

Any direct response pro — which I happen to be — will tell you never to ask such a thing in a survey. People don't know and cannot accurately predict what will motivate them to purchase. The valid way to find out if a gift offer works is to test it in the real world and count the replies.

That said, I can already tell you the answer, because our industry has been testing gift offers nonstop for over 100 years. The answer is an unqualified YES. Gift offers always increase sales. 

Perhaps I should qualify that. The right gift offers always increase sales. Which is the right one? Again, don't ask your subscribers. Test various gifts and see which one emerges as the winner. Then, take that winner and "roll it out" to the rest of your market. Based on my experience, I'm betting that offering an item like a calculator, Starbucks gift card or duffle bag will outperform offering literature. But I've been wrong. Which is why I always test. 

In short, I recommend a more scientific approach. Which would seem to make sense, given who you are.

I love the publication. Please keep up the great work.
 
 
Thomas wrote today with a great question about lumpy ("dimensional," for you purists) direct mail: 

I am new to the marketing and promo business and I read with much interest the article on Lumpy Mail: An Engine for Lead Generation. I enjoy creating ideas and programs such as this and have already learned from you in this article. I do have one question that I hope you can shed some light on. When you send an item, to the extent that it lends itself to it do you use a printed item or a blank item and just let the item and letter do the talking. For instance, the hockey puck or volleyball. Did you have that printed with your clients information (i.e. name, message, etc)? Thanks for the time and any other hints that you might kick back to me are much appreciated. 

 My reply:  

Glad you liked the article, and thanks for writing. I avoid printing on the enclosed item. That way, the item creates more curiosity, leading recipients to read the sales letter. The moment you print anything on the item, even your company name, it begins to look like a promotional item whose job is to put your name in front of someone, thus reducing the curiosity factor. 

Another mistake to avoid is what I call a "payoff headline." Placing an item in a box with a great headline on the outside is good. Putting a headline inside that gives away your message is bad. Suppose, for instance, that you enclose a tennis ball. A good headline on the outside of the box might be, "WHACK! (Details inside.)" But if on the inside of the box lid you print, "We could make a great match," you've just alleviated any need to read the letter. (Not to mention the fact that wimpy puns like that make for awful strategy.) 

For examples of well-crafted (if I say so myself) lumpy mail letters, click here. Clicking on any of the images will bring up the letter so you can read it. 

 Followup from Thomas: 

One last question if you don't mind. Where do I find postal regulation or guideline related to mailing "lumpy mail" or is all of it contained in a box or envelope as a standard piece of mail. The reason that I ask is that years ago I received a tennis shoe in the mail. It had a mailing tag attached with a postage label on it though it was not "packaged" in any way. Anything you can add to this is much appreciated. 

 My reply: 

My experience has been that you can address, stamp and mail just about anything, as long as it's non-hazardous and not likely to fall apart en route. You also need to watch for state regs. For instance, sending produce to California or Hawaii is tricky, and sending alcohol to Utah is flat-out illegal. It's always wise to check in advance with a business mail specialist at your main Post Office. They won't guarantee their answer, but it's usually reliable. You may have noticed that we mailed the volleyball without a box. We just shrink-wrapped an addressed envelope to the ball. We did the same thing some years earlier when we mailed frisbees for Wells Fargo. Each time, however, I called my USPS rep be sure it would be OK. (I pity the letter carriers who had oodles of volleyballs rolling around in the back of the truck, much less had to carry them from office to office.) 

 —Steve Cuno
 
 
If you’re an advertiser, TiVo can bring both bad and good news. On the bad side, it lets people zip past your ads. On the good side, it tells you which ads are skipped and which aren’t, so you can learn something about appealing to viewers.

TiVo just announced the least-zapped televised movie promos for yesterday’s Oscar contenders. During the past six months, “Up in the Air” with George Clooney was zapped the least. Similarly titled animated feature “Up” was a close second. “Avatar” came in third.

I might add that TiVo finds that the most-watched categories of TV commercials in general are, first, movie promos and, second, direct response spots. Think about that next time you’re about to sink your budget into a self-indulgenty entertaining spot just because your ad agency assures you it will win a Clio.

—Steve Cuno
 
 
Want customers to take immediate action? Offer something free.  

Today I received a B2B email from DataPartners offering me a free $15 Starbucks gift card if I would take their survey. I have ignored other emails from them. Not this one. I took the survey. 

Of course, to receive my gift card, I had to give up my address. I was in their database before but, having responded to this offer, now I'm really in it. Fully aware of that consequence, I acted anyway. 

And, funny thing. Completing the survey led me to think a little deeper about our data needs and how DataPartners could help us. So now there’s a chance I'll do business with them.

The old "act now and get this free gift" strategy still works. Don't try telling me that your customers are "too sophisticated to fall for that." The higher your customer registers on the education-income continuum, the better free offers work. This hasn't changed in over 100 years.
 
 (If you’re a viable prospect for data services and you want to hear from DataPartners, you can take the survey by clicking here. Please don’t take advantage of their offer if you’re not a viable prospect and you just want the coffee.)
 
—Steve Cuno
 
 
An angry client hauled me into his office, slammed our latest ad down on his desk, and told me to pull it. Why? It was (and I had to concede this) ugly. Why his underling approved it was beyond him.

I happened to have brought along a spreadsheet showing the results. The ad was outselling its more pleasingly-designed predecessor seven-to-one. "Keep running it," growled the client. 

Don't get me wrong. I understand the importance of design. I understand that the look of your advertising reflects upon your brand. And bad design is certainly never an objective.

But sometimes bad design is a valuable tool. In fact, sometimes bad design outsells good. 

Consider all those ugly ads in in-flight magazines. You know, the full-page ads crammed with three columns of 8-point type without the slightest regard for design. Know why they never go away? Because they sell oodles of products. 

Sometimes successful direct marketers run ugly ads because, starting out, they don't know better and/or can't afford a designer. When profits roll in and they spruce up the ads, they often find the improved look makes no difference in sales. Sometimes the makeover even drives sales down.

Steve Cuno
 
 
1. I wrote better copy than the ad agency’s copywriters. That made it hard for me not to over-edit their work, much less pay them for it.
 
2. The ad agency didn’t know how to quantify results. It’s hard to trust someone’s alleged expertise when they can’t prove they have any.
 
3. The ad agency charged me whatever happened to be in my budget. It seemed to me that a project should cost what it costs, no matter how much or little I have to spend.
 
That’s why, in 1994, I opened the RESPONSE Agency. We’re obsessed with not just well-written, but compelling copy. We measure results, so you get recommendations based on data, not just “trust us.” And if we can do the work for less than you've budgeted, we let you keep the difference.

Steve Cuno
 
 
My newest article for the James Randi Educational Foundation's Swift is now online:

Avoiding personal responsibility used to be clean and simple. Caught red-handed? The devil made you do it. End of story.

But today we have a dizzying array of bogus blaming options. We can choose from rap music, movies, TV, video games, the Internet, Twinkies, genes, society, the neighbor’s kid, our upbringing, the booze talking, atheism, evolution, the definition of “is,” planets, stars, lunar phases, the ever-vague and passive “mistakes were made,” the economy, being an only child, not being an only child, and more. Just keeping track can exhaust the most adept excuse-maker. Call me extreme, but some days I wonder if it might be easier simply to say, “I made a mistake.”

I saved the excuse that accuses my profession for last: “The advertising made me do it.” If you fed your kids fast food until your spouse mistook them for the minivan, blew the budget on a video game system, or bought trendy clothes you didn’t need and that went out of style as you were paying for them, take heart. You can blame us slick advertising people and our so-called hypnotic work.

 Just one problem... (To read the rest of this article, click here.)

 
 
When I rant about flimflam products, I'm often asked what harm results as long as the product makes someone happy, say by providing hope or a placebo effect. Call me a softy, but I think that hundreds of human beings being blown to bits qualifies as harm.

Despite scientific tests to the contrary, many people still believe in dousing — divining for water, oil, buried treasure, etc. Those who sell divining rods are either deluded (they truly believe their device works) or they are con artists. 

You decide which of those applies to Jim McCormick, of ATSC Ltd. McCormick recently sold the Iraqi government a supply of divining rods that he claimed could detect bombs — for $85,000,000. Since then, hundreds of people have been blown to smithereens as a direct result of believing his device "told" them they were safe. Deluded or con artist, McCormick is a mass murderer. 

I am pleased to say that McCormick was just arrested. I am not pleased to say that, while awaiting trial, he is free on bail.

You might call this an extreme case. Agreed. But if we didn't indulge more "innocent" dousing devices — say, divining for water — the extremes would have no precedent to rely on. And, for the record, I do not agree that divining for anything can properly be dismissed as "innocent." But that's another blog.

 Steve Cuno