Crystal Balls make life easy, especially for the marketers amongst us.

But as they are total figment of our childhood imaginations, we’ll just have to make do with research and copywriting cunning.

Direct mail isn’t easy to write.

Oh yes it is!

No, it isn’t. Because if you think all  you need is a bit of blurb about your product, a price and a way for your customer to order, you’re not going to be very successful.

Basically speaking, for your direct mail campaign to work you must have a brilliant:

• List
• Offer
• Copy
• Format

There are a few ‘magic’ ingredients that are required to make your direct mail letter rock. And as I’m feeling rather generous today, I’ll tell you what they are…

Get your offer out – fast

This is so often overlooked.

Get your offer into your heading and mention it again and again and again. A copywriter is a bit like a storyteller – they’ll create drama by showing the reader what their life would be like with your product and how it would benefit them.

To achieve this you can use two different approaches:

1. A desirable product

If you are selling something people want (e.g. jewellery, holidays, cars etc.) give your reader a vision of owning your product in the header and opening paragraph. Tell them you are offering  them something that will fulfil all their dreams and desires.

2. Overcoming pain

This is great when your product overcomes a problem faced by your reader (e.g. ill health, higher taxes etc.) Begin by describing their pain, then introduce your offer which is the cure and follow up with evidence of how your product will cure their pain.

Carrot and stick

Copywriters love this one. It is a way of telling your reader that great things will happen if they respond to your letter. Of course, bad things might happen if they don’t.

For example, if you’re selling a new brand of washing powder. your offer is that it’s been scientifically proven to get laundry clean first time:

Carrot – buy the washing powder and enjoy amazingly clean clothes every time and you’ll be successful in everything that you do.

Stick – stick to your normal powder, wear dull clothes, amount to nothing while everyone else looks amazing and is incredibly successful.

As you can see, direct mail is far more than just writing a letter. Your words have to convince your reader instantly.

Although there are many different uses for the direct mail letter, they all have common characteristics that make them successful.

Of course, your list and your offer will also have a big impact on your success rate but the characteristics I will be talking about are those that make the letter powerful, engaging – a sales force to be reckoned with.

So, that must mean the copy. How you write your letter will determine whether you successfully engage with your reader. A lot depends on the words you use…

Be personal

When you are in a face to face selling situation, the first thing the sales person will try to do is build rapport. That is exactly what your letter has to do. Use language that will engage your reader and address them directly.

Remember this letter isn’t about your company, it’s about what you can do for your reader. You’re intruding on their privacy so ensure you show them that you understand their problem and will help them solve it. After all, if you want them to spend time reading your letter you have to make it worth their while.

You can do this by:

• Using ‘you’ and ‘your’ to build rapport.
• Highlight the benefits to show them what’s in it for them
• Use simple language – if you try to be clever you’ll simply turn them off
• Make sure you reflect their needs and hopes within the letter

Tell them a story

Use the good old fashioned story template to sell your product. Tell them how their lives are at the moment and then tell them about your product and how it will make things better. Make them the hero in your story and by taking action they will make everything better.

Don’t be woolly

If you’re vague in your claims no one is going to believe them. Use facts and figures to back things up; use testimonials and case studies to show what effect your product could have.

And now?

Once you’ve grabbed their attention, built rapport and convinced them your product is for them, make sure you tell them what to do next. If you won’t all your hard work would have been wasted.

Make sure your call to action is commanding – call now, email now, book now etc. Also tell them what will happen next – delivery in 7 days, we’ll call you within 24 hours…

As you can see creating a strong direct mail letter is not as straight forward as it would seem. But if you constantly keep your reader in your mind, you will be able to create something centred on their needs that will get them to take action.

Sally Ormond is a freelance copywriter who works with companies all over the world. Her copywriting services have helped numerous companies increase their sales and enjoy greater visibility within their market place.

Direct mail has always been a very effective marketing tool – but only if you get it right.

It won’t have a place in every business, especially with the advances in online marketing. But it is still very much alive and well.

If you dabble in direct mail and want your campaigns to be successful, there are three elements you should use to maximise your chances of success:

1. Make sure the content of your letter appeals to your target market
2. Make sure it is written to inspire your audience to take an action
3. Make sure you can monitor its effectiveness

Let’s take a look at each one of  these areas in more details to see how you can give your direct marketing campaign the edge.

Your target audience

Do you know who you are trying to reach?

A blanket mailing may well reach thousands of households but it’s unlikely to be the most effective way to run your campaign.

Your campaign should be targeted at a specific market segment and it should address the issues that they face. Make sure your content is benefits orientated explaining how your product will have a direct positive influence on your reader.

As an aside, the four most important aspects of your direct mail campaign are:

• Your list
• Your offer
• The format
• The copy

As you can see your list (i.e. the people you are sending it to – your target audience) is right at the top. This is because no matter how great your copy is or your offer, if you send it to the wrong people you won’t be successful. Knowing your audience is key to the success of your campaign.

Take action

If you don’t tell your reader to take an action, your direct  mail campaign won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. Just as with your website copy, once you have your readers’ attention and made them want your product, you then have to tell them what to do.

Plus make it easy for them, enclose an SAE, give them a free phone number etc. If they can respond easily they will. Make it difficult for them and they won’t bother.

And the results are…

If you don’t measure your results, how can you improve?

Monitor it by adding a code to your order form, giving a code to enter into your website when ordering, a specific 0800 number or mark your SAEs with a code that’s easily recognisable.

However you do it, monitoring your results will help you shape future campaigns to ensure you get the most out of your investment.

So next time you embark on a direct mail campaign, make sure you cover all three of these elements. Over time your campaigns will be honed to perfection but remember anything can be improved.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

Every freelance copywriter will know that every new project brings with it a whole new set of challenges.

Which is why it is vital that, before you start anything, you clearly understand the goals of your project. If you know where you need to end up, it will be a lot easier to get there.

One of the first questions you should ask your client is what is the purpose of the project?

For example, if you are writing a sales letter it is important to remember that what you are writing is going to replace a personal visit or face to face conversation.

Whereas face to face a salesman can make eye contact, gain clues from the customer’s body language and counter objections as they arise, your letter can’t do that so the copy within it has to satisfy any potential objections, engage with the reader, and convince them to buy. A salesman can run after a customer who’s about to walk and have another go – your sales letter can’t, so you have to get it right first time.

Therefore setting out your goals before you begin is vital. They could be anything, including:

• Making a sale
• Getting opt-ins for your email list
• Getting someone to open an account with you
• Increase a customer’s spending with you
• Renewing a contract
• Agreeing to a meeting

Whatever it is, make sure it is the goal that drives your writing and not your creativity.

Copywriters, like all writers, are creatives at heart so it can be very easy to allow your alter ego get the better of you.

How do you know if you’ve gone over the top? Simple, if you read it and it makes you smile; if you want to show it to everyone with a big grin on your face shouting from the roof tops ‘look how clever I am’, ditch it because you’ve most probably over done it.

Copy is there to sell – pure and simple. The writing should be almost invisible. I don’t mean so they are looking at a blank page but rather that when they’ve read it they think “Wow, what a great product I must buy it” rather than “that’s a great bit of writing, now where’s the bin.”

Staying focused is the key – never lose sight of your goals.

As a copywriter I am frequently asked by my clients to write direct mail sales letters.

These are quite an art form in themselves and can be quite complex to write.

But the work begins long before you actually put pen to paper or finger to keyboard.

In fact this is true for just about any form of copywriting. If you launch in without a lot of thought, you are very unlikely to produce something that will be strong enough to sell. There’s a lot of ground work to get through before you should even consider writing.

The first stage is to know your market. How can you convince someone to buy something if you don’t know what they want? But not only do you need to understand who you are writing to, you also need to identity why you are writing to them in the first place.

Yes, I know you are writing to them because you want them to buy from you, but unless you are 100% clear about the reaction you want to evoke, you may not get the response you are looking for.

Basically you are looking to identify:

What you want your reader to know

The key here is to ensure your writing is benefit-led and not feature-led. Obviously you’ll need to tell your reader some facts about what you are selling so that they can then justify their buying decision, but the benefits must come first. Also resist the temptation to tell them all about your company, they are really not interested. All they want to know is what you are going to do for them.

How you want them to feel

Getting an emotional response is the best way to get them to buy. Make sure your sales letter makes them feel they’ll be missing out if they don’t buy. You are offering them a fantastic opportunity and they must act NOW!

What you want them to commit to

Even if you write a really strong sales letter, omitting your call to action will make the whole exercise a complete waste of time. It can be as simple as ‘buy now’, ‘recommend a friend’ or perhaps ‘book an appointment with an advisor’. Just make sure it is specific and direct. You must leave them in no doubt whatsoever about what they should do, how they should do it and when.

These three simple rules will help you write stronger, sales orientated copy that will get your readers taking notice.

Whether you are talking direct mail campaigns or direct response adverts – this is one form of copywriting that is set to stay.

Many people think that direct response copywriting doesn’t work, but if it doesn’t, why do so many companies continue to use it?

The key to ensuring your direct response campaign works, is to ensure that your copy is compelling, interesting and relevant enough to grab your readers’ attention.

If your writing takes on a friendly tone, it is far more likely to be read than something that is hard sell or ‘high-brow’. As for whether your copy should be long or short – quite simply, it should be as long as it needs to be to get your message across.

The magic formula

This is the science bit – there are 3 main elements to any direct response letter:

1. Headline
2. Offer
3. Postscript

Your headline must be attention grabbing, your offer must be amazing and your postscript will provide the incentive needed to buy.

Other important elements that will help your readers reach a buying decision are testimonials and case studies. People are naturally sceptical about unsolicited offers through the post (or by email) therefore you must earn their trust. And the best way to do that is to show them how other people have benefited from your product or service. But make sure they are genuine.

With a captivating headline and powerful offer, you should be almost at the sale point. But to give an extra push, use your postscript.

Your incentive to buy now could be a time limited discount, or the first 500 customers receive a free bonus…something along those lines.

The key to your direct response letter or email is to get the recipient to take action immediately, and that is what your postscript is designed to do.

Can you guarantee success?

The answer to that is probably no. There are so many factors that come in to play, there can be no guarantees.

However, you can maximise your chances by using a professional copywriter to write your letter. But you must also consider who you are sending it to (an in-house list is likely to bring in a greater return than a bough-in list), when you are sending it, how you are sending it.

If everything goes in your favour, direct response can achieve great results.

Indulge me for a moment and think of yourself running a busy kitchen. Business couldn’t be better; bookings are up, in fact you now have a waiting list for tables. You have to bring in a new chef to cope with the extra workload.

On Wednesday evening he arrives ready and raring to go. But, he doesn’t take the time to discuss with you how the kitchen works. Instead, he heads off and does his own thing.

The result is TOTAL CHAOS!

The ingredients for successful direct marketing

In the world of the freelance copywriter there is a recipe that is regularly used to create great direct mail that works.

• A great list
• An amazing offer
• Brilliant copy

As a copywriter, the first two items in the list are usually out of your control, but that isn’t an excuse. When dealing with direct mail it’s essential to be part of the whole process. Get to know what the campaign is for, why it is being done, who they are targeting and what they are hoping to achieve at the end of it.

Where is the list coming from? If it’s bought in or old it is unlikely to be targeting the right people and the campaign will probably fail. Whereas if it is an in-house list, it stands a better chance of success.

If the offer isn’t particularly eye catching it will fail. Don’t forget you are asking people to part with cash – just because you think it’s a great offer doesn’t mean they will. Put yourself in their shoes; what would they perceive as a great offer?

And when it comes to the copy, if the list and offer are poor, you can write the best copy in the history of man and it won’t work.

Put in your all or it will go Pete Tong

At the end of the day, if you as a copywriter don’t have some sort of input into the whole process you are running the risk of the campaign failing. You can’t make your client do what you want, but you can at least put your point forward.

If you want to maximise the chances of it working, find out about the list, work with the marketing team and write the best copy you’ve ever written.

No guarantees

There are no guarantees – there are a lot of factors that can throw a spanner in the works (tone, target audience, timing, world events, how it was sent etc.).

If you are thinking of hiring a freelance copywriter for your campaign remember to treat them as an extension of your team. They have a great deal of experience so use it to give your campaign the edge.