Message & Media : Meet Your Marketing Allies

Your direct response copywriters and designers are creative strategists, not just word and art mavens

A couple of years ago, I wrote a column for Target Marketing magazine to help marketing managers and account execs understand what direct response writers want and need to know to do our jobs.

"Clue in Your Copywriter" generated a healthy response from both writers and those of you who deal with us, so I knew I hit a hot button. One woman wrote to me that she went so far as to tape the column to her boss' desktop.

Now, I'm expanding the discussion to help you get more for your money invested in direct response writers and designers.

In a recent phone call with Patrick Fultz—one of my favorite direct design colleagues—he summed up the problem: "People don't really understand what we do, why we do it and how we work together." This lack of understanding gets in the way of us doing our joint job of generating response.

That's why I'm giving you a glimpse into the thought process of a direct response creative team: writer and designer. Or as Patrick says: 1 writer + 1 designer = 3 times the ideas.

First, think of us as your marketing allies. We want what you want—increased clicks, calls, visits and sales. As direct response designers and writers, we are highly competitive professionals who measure success not by the awards we win, but the controls we beat.

Second, it's time to rethink the old direct marketing adage, "Copy is king." From my experience working with top-notch direct response designers, I know we give you a stronger end product when we work together from the get-go.

We are creative strategists first, writers and designers second. This is why we ask so many questions. We don't work in a vacuum. We need information and have a reason for just about everything we do. Help us do our best work by giving us a creative brief with access to the following information:

• Business objective: Help us understand the marketing goal. Is it to acquire new customers? Transform first-time tryers into second-time buyers? Increase the average sale? Identify better qualified landing page leads? Counter new competition?

• Targeted audience: Tell us everything you know about the audience. We want to know them inside out. Statistics are good; so are anecdotal and qualitative insights. Give us demographics, psychographics and behavioral patterns. The more we know about the individual whose behavior we are trying to change, the more successful we'll be.

• MORE ON
• DIRECT MAIL & POSTAL