In this issue:

* The F*@!#N dinner campaign that broke all kind of sales records
* Getting a 50% response rate to a one time mailer …
* How to leverage “the diaper mailer” …
* And Much More!

A Direct Mail Information Service survey found that 78 percent of your clients
actually DO want to get mailings from you. Combine that with your own
highly targeted campaigns — ones that make full use of your customer
data — and you’ve got a winning combination.

Just to add fuel to the fire:

* 70% of Generation Y have stated that they respond to print
direct mail (vs. 68% Generation X and 61% Boomers) – 2007 Veritas
Customer Focus.

* 90% will open their mail if it looks interesting or intriguing
(vs. 84% will open it if it has their name on it) – NOTE: people are
more likely to open it if it looks interesting than if it has their
name on it – Consumer Attitudes Towards Direct Mail Study.

* 163% are more likely to buy from a website if they see a
printed direct mail piece than if they saw digital e-mail only – 2007
Multichannel Direct Mail Study, comScore Inc.

* 73% prefer print direct mail for offers and information – only
18% said they prefer e-mail.

* Those who received a promotional product in a dimensional
package responded at a rate that was 57% higher than those who
received the same promotional product in an envelope – Baylor
University.

* Response rates for the dimensional package recipients were 75%
higher than for the group who received only a sales letter – Baylor
University.

People WANT to be intrigued by your mailing piece
- Is regular print cutting it?

==============================
Take Knorr’s new launch of a frozen food line.
==============================

First, they know exactly what people typically think of frozen meals
- ugh.  Blah.  Not very tasty.  So they used that as part of their
campaign.

Second, they pushed the edge a little – especially when you consider
they are quite a traditional company – not exactly ones to push it
that far.

They wanted to target a younger audience than they were used to
(those less likely to want to spend their time in the kitchen cooking
a gourmet dinner).

But they also wanted to target a 25-35 year old professional women,
one who enjoys a glass of wine over dinner.

Great market that is highly focused and has disposable income.

Based on their own in-house list, combined with a list from a partner
company, they were able to put together a very desirable list for
their offer.

Step #1, they gave a coupon for a free $8.99 dinner to this exact
demographic group. The next closest niche group they could find, they
mailed a lower end coupon for ready-to-serve soup, worth $3.99.

==============================
The front of the direct mail piece reads:
To reveal the full message, put this in your freezer …
F*@!#N Delicious
==============================
(showing a picture of a scrumptious shrimp
and pasta bowl underneath the headline)

When you put it in the freezer, the message changed to (using
temperature sensitive ink) :

To reveal the full message, put this in your freezer …
FROZEN
Delicious

It worked incredibly well for them.

Stepping into a very risqué type of marketing (the other ads they
ran all used the F*@!#N concept – “Not your mom’s F*@!#N dinners”).

==============================
The most targeted list received over 50% response, with a 10%
overall response rate from all different list segments.
==============================

They sold out all the products in the first run and had to plan
carefully for subsequent mailings.

Or, what about the Nova Scotia-based golf course that mailed sports
writers who had recently played one of the five courses around?

==============================
Included with the mailing was a beat up old golf ball with a simple
1-page letter:
==============================

“While doing some routine maintenance on the course, the ground
crew found this ball in the sand trap or water hole, and an eyewitness
thought it might be yours.  And, by the way, we’d love you to come
back and we can help you plan your trip …”

Brilliant!

So was their response.

They were deluged with phone calls both to book further golf trips,
plus to compliment them on the very intelligent piece.

My point is that every single one of us should be using more
creativity in our mailers.  The copy is king – but your customers WANT
MORE from you.

More fun.
More interactivity.
More unusual marketing pieces.

For example, why not do a Web card (a postcard showing a screen shot
of your website) with a highlighted section on your website – make a
secret clickable link that would not be noticeable otherwise – forcing
them to go to your website to check out the link?

Or you can borrow this idea from a piece I received.  A nice, shiny,
blue metallic envelope shows up in my mailbox one day.
Inside is a one page letter and a diaper.

The actual letter teases you with some very targeted copy.

They know who you are, what you do for a living, and what your main
area of interest is.

In order to find out what the diaper is for, and to find out what
this is all about, you need to go to a special website -
whatsthediaperfor.com. (It is no longer live, so you won’t find
anything there.)

Makes it difficult NOT to check out the site.

Which is the exact point.

There are hundreds and hundreds of gimmicky things you can use in
your mailings to bulk them up and make them more compelling.
People want to be entertained (and sold), so make sure
you are giving them what they want.

==============================
There are a few ways you can find ideas for your business here:
==============================

1. Find related products to your industry niche, your product, or
your target market.  Talk to promotional companies to see what they
can find for you. (They typically have bookshelves FULL of catalogs
they can pull ideas from.)

2. Talk to pop-up creators (Not the Web page pop-ups, but the
physical ones that can create pop-up people, buildings, clothing,
animals … or pretty well anything else you can imagine.)  Search for
pop-up direct mail or dimensional direct mail with your industry in
the search term – see what you find.

3. Use a one-page creativity initiator, like this one I created

(for a more graphical list,
go to http://www.smallbusinesscopywriter.com/creativelist.htm ):

Action Figures    Art classes        Airplanes
Archery        Board games
Basketball        Baking        Baton twirling
Blackboards/chalk    Beanbags        Biking
Binoculars        Bird watching    Blocks
Butterflies        Bowling        Cap guns
Cracker Jacks    Clay Creations    Caterpillars
Cots        Books        Boomerangs
Bubbles        Bug Collections    Boat sailing/building
Card games    Carpentry        Cards
Costumes        Chess        Candles
Camping        Checkers        Cats
Clay molding    Construction    Coloring books
Cartoons        Chalk boards/drawing    Cars
Cooking        Computer games    Crayons
Chemistry        Dancing        Dollhouses
Dogs        Dominoes        Dolls
Drumming        Dune buggy    Electric toys
Exercise        Elephants        Elegant party
Dice        Dreams        Energy

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =  = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =  = = = = = = = = = = = = =

NOTE: The birthday bundle special is on for 2 more days….

packed with hot marketing ideas for the year end buying season

PLUS a free teleseminar that will help you improve your cash flow and attract new clients

details at: http://www.smallbusinesscopywriter.com/troybday.htm

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =  = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =  = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Football        Firecrackers    Frisbee
Finger painting    Flower pressing    Finances
Forts        Guitar        Games
Gardens        Garages        Golf
Gymnastics        Hunting for bugs    Horseshoes
Haunting        Harmonica        Harp
Hammocks        Horoscopes    Helicopters
Hiking        Hockey        Jewelry making
Juggling        Jumping rope    Kaleidoscopes
Kites        Knitting        Letter writing
Listening to music    Lumber        Mummies
Magic tricks    Magnets        Microscope
Magnifying glass    Marbles        Marionettes
Model making    Musical instruments    Masks
Nature walks    Needle point    Paper airplanes
Paper-mache    Plants        Pipes
Photography    Piano        Playgrounds
Ping pong        Poster coloring    Puppet making and play
Pool        Puzzles        Rocks
Remote control cars    Reading        Robots
Slides        Skiing        Snowmen
Star gazing        Scare Crows    Silk Screen
Soap Making    Ships        Sleds
Science        Scrap books    Scrap yards
Sand boxes        Rope        Skating
Stamp collecting    Skateboarding    Sketching
Tires /tubes        Twister        Trampoline
Tea Party        Tents        Trading cards
Telescopes        Swimming        Strings
Stickers        Train sets        Tools
Traveling        Violin        Volleyball
Video games    Walking        Whistling
Wagons        Whittling        Walkie-Talkies
Writing        Xylophone        Wilderness
Yoga        View-Master    Yo-Yos
Yarn        Zebras        Zipper
Zoo trips

4. Use a site like www.orientaltrading.com or http://www.promoprofits.com
Thousands of ideas are there for you – at incredibly reasonable prices.

5. Talk to direct marketers who specialize in dimensional
mailings.

6. Talk to packaging experts.  There are lots of freelance
packaging experts out there who are used to producing product
packaging and would welcome the opportunity to be more creative with a
new type of mailing piece – like the one direct marketer I know of in
Canada who used a packaging expert to design a mock-up shipping carton
with “live animal” written on the outside, straw sticking out of it,
and a surprise inside.  This mailing piece was responsible for over
$1.6 million dollars in new revenues for him.

It doesn’t take much to stand out from the crowd these days in
print mail – many people are getting cheaper and cheaper in their
marketing and moving from print to digital, despite the response
rates.

==============================
I have personally mailed many a bizarre thing: Halloween masks,
bells, dollar bills, coins, cartoons, hats, MP3 players, memory
sticks, garden seeds, etc. and have always been very happy with
the results I got.
==============================

If you are feeling a little sluggish in the sales department, maybe
now is the perfect time to try something new!

To your success,

Troy White

PS: If you want to crank up the heat in your marketing, the Birthday
Bundle Special is still on for 2.5 more days…

details at: http://www.smallbusinesscopywriter.com/troybday.htm