Direct Mail Strategy : Rev Up Your Response

Test bells and whistles, gadgets and gizmos

May 2008 By Pat Friesen

multipage

Free Gift. When you can cost-effectively include an appropriate free gift inside your mail piece, it's a powerful tool for getting the mailing opened and read. The gift can be anything from those ubiquitous return address labels found in cause-related mailings to a foreign coin glue-tipped to the top of a survey with an advance note of thanks for answering and returning the survey. For example: "Please keep the coin as a small thank you or share it with a young collector."

A variation on this theme is the "Guardian Angel" token found in a Catholic Relief Services mailing with the copy, "Keep this guardian angel as a reminder of the children you help." The key is to make sure the gift not only is appropriate, but noticeable without opening the envelope.

Support Benefits
Product Samples. These gadgets and gizmos are a unique and extensive category of their own. Here are a few examples to start you thinking about how to use them in your own situation:

• Swatches-There's nothing like a product swatch to overcome the objection, "I don't believe it's true." When I wrote for Fingerhut, we included a swatch with copy describing how Fingerhut's his and her PVC jackets had the look and feel of genuine leather.

• Book Pages and Binder Cards-Among the many product samples in my files are the collectible three-hole-punched cards from publishers of books such as "The Complete Guide to Natural Healing." Not only does the publisher include six sample cards with actual content in its mailing, but it also provides a usable sample of soothing eye tea bags-an appropriate free gift. The thing to remember about samples is that the format can be anything from a magazine issue or a video tour of your college campus to a CD demo or consumable product sample.

How are you going to use bells and whistles, gadgets, and gizmos to grab attention, increase the openability of your mailings and support your benefit statements? Report back to me.

Pat Friesen is president of Pat Friesen & Co. She can be reached at (913) 341-1211, via e-mail at pat@patfriesen.com or by visiting www.PatFriesen.com.

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