Will they be talking about your
DM piece around the water cooler?

Let me start by agreeing with three of direct marketing’s demigods:

1. David Ogilvy, who said the word “creativity” should be banned from advertising;
2. Lester Wunderman, who said “the only thing that matters is results”, and
3. Herschell Gordon Lewis, who admonishes copywriters to “get inside the readers’ heads and tell them something they want to know”.

I’m not necessarily opposed to attempts to inject direct marketing with a little more wit, colour, playfulness or intellectual challenge. What I’m opposed to are those who dismiss direct mail as dull and somehow unworthy simply because it follows certain well-tested guidelines, such as putting a PS at the end of a letter, or stamping the word “URGENT” in rubrics on an envelope.

I’m also amused by the egocentric objections some people have to the notion that lists and offers might be more important than their precious words, witticisms and images. And I’ll warrant that anybody who feels that way has never had his or her work tested.

Direct marketers know, from testing, that a PS will boost responses. We know, from testing, that ugly or imperfect artwork may out-pull perfection. We know that “overlines” and “Johnson Boxes” and thrice-repeated phone numbers work. We know you can succeed in business without expensively designed, written and produced brochures. We know that a good offer, made to the right person, is the way to get results. And while it is true that a ‘creative’ package may pull more responses than a standard package with the same list and offer, the gain in results may not justify the extra expense.

Ask Reader’s Digest or Publisher’s Clearing House, who mail tens of millions of pieces a year, why they don’t send self-mailers instead of envelopes. Their answer will be that, for what they are selling, those formats don’t work. And they know, because they’ve tested.

Yes, there are times when you can ‘push the edge of the envelope’, even turn it inside out, and get great results. And yes, people do want to receive mail that interests them and piques their curiosity. But the only allowable claim to superiority in direct mail is results, and the only way to prove it is by testing. Until then, I’ll continue to follow a few simple guidelines: I’ll indent paragraphs, use subheads and underlining, and try to speak plainly and informally. Instead of talking about myself, I’ll try to talk to the interests of the reader.

Above all I’ll try to remember HGL’s other rule: In the Age of Skepticism, cleverness for its own sake may well be a liability, rather than an asset.

P.S. It doesn’t matter if they talk about that “great direct mail piece” around the water cooler. It only matters whether or not they respond.