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For years, I’ve run a small ad in this publication offering a free critique of an ad or a direct mail package. Obviously, the purpose is to troll for clients.
At this juncture in my life—with a twice a week e-zine (www.businesscommonsense.com), this monthly column and a curious promotional vehicle called List Insider—I’m not interested in taking on new clients. But the ad continues to run. The reason: I love to see what people are doing.
When someone sends me a piece for critique, I don’t say whether it is good or bad, nor do I say whether or not I like it. As I will say to anyone, “You can’t judge good direct marketing; it judges you.”
By that I mean, if a mailing effort or an off-the-page ad works—brings in customers at an acceptable cost-per-order or, more importantly, a profitable lifetime value—it’s successful. It matters not whether I like it, or whether it’s pretty or ugly.
When my wife, Peggy, and I started the giant archive of direct mail samples (www.whosmailingwhat.com/trial/tm), which has grown to more than 190,000 pieces in nearly 200 categories going back 12 years, the object was to see which mailings came in again and again. These are the controls; it was my job to reverse engineer them, figure out why they were controls, and pass this information—as I saw it—to the readers of our newsletter, Inside Direct Mail.
In analyzing these controls, it’s apparent that successful packages obey certain rules of offers, copy, design and format.
When someone sends me a package or ad, I promise one thing: to point out which rules are being followed and which rules are being broken, and ask whether the person knows which rules are being broken. Incidentally, I will not critique super high-tech mailings to techies, vitamin and supplement mailings to the health conscious, get-rich-quick financial letters and multi-level marketing efforts, or porny and horny stuff. This is not a moral or social stance on my part. I’m simply not qualified to comment on this stuff.
What People Send Me
After years of offering a free critique, I have come to the conclusion that people send me stuff for two reasons: 1) They can’t (or won’t) afford competent marketing help and/or 2) they’re desperate for affirmation and get annoyed when I point out the broken rules.
I receive all kinds of campaigns—consumer and business—and it’s clear that the marketing process is an afterthought. Here are the broken rules these nascent entrepreneurs think they can get away with:
* Postcard effort for a complex and expensive offer.
* Lead generation that describes everything, talks price and then urges the prospect to send for more information.
* A letter filled with “it” copy (as opposed to “you” or benefit-oriented copy)—a circular in drag.
* Pages of long-winded lectures and blather with no idea where it’s going or how it should be presented—a kind of meandering blog in print. (Note: Denny Hatch’s definition of a blog: “A cross between a blob and a bog.”)
* Pages of wild promises—of riches beyond the dreams of avarice all accomplished in your spare time from the afterdeck of your 155-foot yacht, and all of this mad hype from someone with zero credentials and nary a testimonial from a satisfied customer.
* Letter with footnotes or no letter at all.
* Zero emotion, zero urgency, zero offer.
The sad part is that these penurious amateurs think they can do their own marketing and have it validated by me with a free critique, when in fact it is marketing that drives business.
I’m reminded of two men meeting at a party. “What do you do?” asks the first guy. “I’m a brain surgeon,” the other replies. “What do you do?”
“I’m a writer.”
“Ah,” says the brain surgeon. “I have often thought that after I retire, I would like to do some writing.”
“Ah,” says the writer, “and I have often thought that after I retire, I would like to do a little brain surgery.”
Denny Hatch is a freelance direct marketing consultant and copywriter. You can contact him via e-mail at dennyhatch@yahoo.com.
At this juncture in my life—with a twice a week e-zine (www.businesscommonsense.com), this monthly column and a curious promotional vehicle called List Insider—I’m not interested in taking on new clients. But the ad continues to run. The reason: I love to see what people are doing.
When someone sends me a piece for critique, I don’t say whether it is good or bad, nor do I say whether or not I like it. As I will say to anyone, “You can’t judge good direct marketing; it judges you.”
By that I mean, if a mailing effort or an off-the-page ad works—brings in customers at an acceptable cost-per-order or, more importantly, a profitable lifetime value—it’s successful. It matters not whether I like it, or whether it’s pretty or ugly.
When my wife, Peggy, and I started the giant archive of direct mail samples (www.whosmailingwhat.com/trial/tm), which has grown to more than 190,000 pieces in nearly 200 categories going back 12 years, the object was to see which mailings came in again and again. These are the controls; it was my job to reverse engineer them, figure out why they were controls, and pass this information—as I saw it—to the readers of our newsletter, Inside Direct Mail.
In analyzing these controls, it’s apparent that successful packages obey certain rules of offers, copy, design and format.
When someone sends me a package or ad, I promise one thing: to point out which rules are being followed and which rules are being broken, and ask whether the person knows which rules are being broken. Incidentally, I will not critique super high-tech mailings to techies, vitamin and supplement mailings to the health conscious, get-rich-quick financial letters and multi-level marketing efforts, or porny and horny stuff. This is not a moral or social stance on my part. I’m simply not qualified to comment on this stuff.
What People Send Me
After years of offering a free critique, I have come to the conclusion that people send me stuff for two reasons: 1) They can’t (or won’t) afford competent marketing help and/or 2) they’re desperate for affirmation and get annoyed when I point out the broken rules.
I receive all kinds of campaigns—consumer and business—and it’s clear that the marketing process is an afterthought. Here are the broken rules these nascent entrepreneurs think they can get away with:
* Postcard effort for a complex and expensive offer.
* Lead generation that describes everything, talks price and then urges the prospect to send for more information.
* A letter filled with “it” copy (as opposed to “you” or benefit-oriented copy)—a circular in drag.
* Pages of long-winded lectures and blather with no idea where it’s going or how it should be presented—a kind of meandering blog in print. (Note: Denny Hatch’s definition of a blog: “A cross between a blob and a bog.”)
* Pages of wild promises—of riches beyond the dreams of avarice all accomplished in your spare time from the afterdeck of your 155-foot yacht, and all of this mad hype from someone with zero credentials and nary a testimonial from a satisfied customer.
* Letter with footnotes or no letter at all.
* Zero emotion, zero urgency, zero offer.
The sad part is that these penurious amateurs think they can do their own marketing and have it validated by me with a free critique, when in fact it is marketing that drives business.
I’m reminded of two men meeting at a party. “What do you do?” asks the first guy. “I’m a brain surgeon,” the other replies. “What do you do?”
“I’m a writer.”
“Ah,” says the brain surgeon. “I have often thought that after I retire, I would like to do some writing.”
“Ah,” says the writer, “and I have often thought that after I retire, I would like to do a little brain surgery.”
Denny Hatch is a freelance direct marketing consultant and copywriter. You can contact him via e-mail at dennyhatch@yahoo.com.
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