--Introduction-- Fairfax Cone (one of
founders of Foote, Cone & Belding), in his book "With All Its Faults", said that when most people sit down to write an ad "they forget that advertising is something one does only when he can’t go see his prospects and make his proposition face to face. The maker of an advertisement is simply developing best substitute he can for personal solicitation and he should come as close to this as he can in both words and feeling."
While this is certainly true -- that there are similarities between a sales call and a successful ad -- there are also very important differences.
--The 7 Fatal Mistakes--
One of most important differences is that most salesmen call on customers who are, in their opinion, likely to buy. On other hand, they try to avoid those "unlikely to buy".
In other words, successful salesmen qualify their prospects. Successful salesmen don’t like to waste their time calling on people who have no interest in what they are selling. They like to call on people who are likely buyers; people who can be persuaded.
Translated to direct marketing, this means:
1) Lists. Direct Marketing Success starts with a good list. In fact, 60% to 80% of your success in Direct Marketing depends on list selection. Wrong list, wrong result.
If you were a tractor salesman, you wouldn’t want Manhattan as your territory. You’re not going to sell many tractors in Manhattan. And, if you were a direct marketing tractor salesman, you wouldn’t want to be targeting Manhattan either.
The better you can define who is hungriest for what you offer, easier -- and more likely -- sale. On other hand, less need, more difficult -- or, even impossible sale. And, that’s why Poor List Selection is First Fatal Mistake. Get this wrong and nothing will save your effort.
Once a salesman has determined that someone is a true prospect and once they’ve made their initial contact and confirmed that this is indeed a prospect they make multiple contacts. Study after study has shown that most sales people give up too soon. Successful salespeople call on an average of 7 times before they close sale. In Direct Marketing this means
2) Multiple Contacts. Just as a salesman knows that, in most cases, he has to call several times before he can make a sale, so a direct marketing effort cannot be a one-shot wonder. There are exceptions, to be sure. But, most sales situations require multiple contacts.
This is especially true in Business-to-Business Direct Marketing where you have professional buyers. They’ve seen it all. They’ve heard it all. And, what they want to know is if they can depend on you to do more than just take an order. They know orders require follow-thru and they want to see if they can depend on you.
Moreover, it is very hard to make a lasting impression in one visit. You need repeat calls to get thru to people.
The parallel to this in Direct Marketing is multiple mailings to same list. It is usually much better to mail 7 times to 1,000 really good prospects than to mail 1 time to 7,000 prospects. This, of course, says again how important it is to make sure you get a good list of prospects. If list is right, results are all but guaranteed.
The bottom line is that not mailing multiple times, can be Second Fatal Mistake of Direct Marketing.
Once a salesman gets an appointment with a customer and once introductions are made, a salesman has to tell them why he’s there. And, what customer wants to know is: what’s in it for me. If you don’t get that out and get it out fast, any successful salesman knows you’re out door -- fast! In Direct Marketing equivalent is:
3) Offer. Unless you have a product or service that provides a unique solution to an obvious problem you’ll need a strong offer.
That offer has to promise to solve a problem that is causing your prospects pain. In this case, it is true: no pain no gain.
One way to think about this is to imagine you had a sandwich truck. When would you get more customers: before lunch, or after? Obviously, before. After lunch hunger pain is a memory.
It’s same with your prospects. You want to reach them where they hurt and show how you can help ease that pain. If your offer doesn’t touch their pain, you won’t sell them.
The Third Fatal Mistake of Direct Marketing, therefore, is not making a strong offer that’s hard for customer to resist.
And, frequently, place you must make your offer in Direct Marketing is in your Headline...
4) Headline. In retail it is said secret to success is location, location, location. In direct response it’s headline, headline, headline. A headline (or in e-mail subject line) is ad for your ad.
Your headline has to interrupt your prospects. When your ad message arrives they are busy thinking about sex, or money, or how they are going to keep their job, or whatever! In any case, it is something they are really interested in at moment.
And, in a pleasant way your headline has to say "excuse me, could I have a minute of your time?" And, it has to get a "yes" or you’re not going to get your sale.
