Insider’s Secrets For Making Direct Mail Work

This is the first in a series of weekly articles dedicated to helping you take contol of your own marketing in the "New Economy" both on and off line.


Direct Marketing has components that are easy to teach and are based on principles of testing and retesting, such as placement of headlines, sub heads, and the use of a “Johnson Box” or two. However, there is a huge variable and that variable is your customer. How well you know your customer base and how in-tuned you are to the desires and needs of your customer are crucial.

To teach someone how to avoid writing an unsuccessful direct mail piece is much easier and more predictive of success than teaching someone how to write a guaranteed winner. Even professional direct mail copywriters who earn big bucks cannot guarantee all of their direct mail pieces will bring the desired response.

An effective direct mail marketing piece, whether a post card, letter, or a brochure, must encompass the secret ingredients. Each must include the secret ingredients and each must be able to convince your customer to buy based on its own merits. To begin with your direct mail piece needs an opening headline or short paragraph that accomplishes at least one of these three things:

*Communicates your offer
*Stresses the premier feature of your offer
*Targets your reader

By beginning with these key elements you prepare your customer for your offer by grabbing their attention immediately and “warm them up” to your offer.

Look for more marketing nuggets in the days to come.

The Marketer of Marketing,
Pete Swartz

Marketing Campaign , Big or Small…?

I hope everyone is taking some time to reflect on 2008. It has been quite a year and hopefully there has been lessons learned.

I know I have taken away a whole new prospective on what it will take to market a business in the “New Economy”.

The world of marketing is changing right before our eyes. We are seeing the decline of newspaper media advertising and the explosion of Social Media/Web2.0 advertising.

What does this mean to you? Well as before you needed a well rounded marketing plan to be on top of your business and that included paper and ink. Well now you don’t need as much hard copy and you need to deliver your message virally.

If you know how to do this you have the advantage of the slight edge which will let you survive in the “New Economy”. Ignore these principles and you will go by the wayside.

So, it’s your choice! Join us at the Oakland County Chapter of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle and see what a New Economy Marketing Plan looks like. We will give you two complete campaigns, one small, one large that you can implement in your business immediately. Hint, neither one contains Detroit Freepress advertising!

So, see you there on January 28th at the Marriot Residence Inn, 2600 Livernois Rd., Troy at 6:30pm. We will provide dinner, beverage and dessert. Your first meeting is FREE!

See you there!