How to wreck your direct mail

Here's something worth knowing from the Direct Creative Blog: 7 stupid ways to screw up your direct mail. They are:

1. Allow a trigger-happy "general" agency within killing range of your promotion.
2. Have the artist design the piece first, and the writer fill in the blanks later.
3. Plaster a clever teaser on every envelope you mail.
4. Spending 2 weeks on the flyer and 2 hours on the letter.
5. Create a slow-reveal "Burma Shave" brochure.
6. Play hide and seek with the order form, guarantee, and testimonials.
7. Guess, guess, guess instead of test, test, test.

Study these things. They're not only stupid, they're very, very common.

Comments

[Donald Summers]

Direct mail should be wrecked. Lousy ROI. Do it right, and you have a volunteer-driven, face-to-face solicitation engine. And a business plan that optimizes all the other revenue domains.

Direct mail is for people who don't understand ROI and just follow what everyone else does. The people it benefits most work for paper mills and the post office.