Research has shown that you have a mere 2 to 3 seconds to get your direct mail message across to the customer before they trash it. How can you get your message to cut through the clutter and get noticed? That’s the million-dollar question. While there’s no right answer that applies to every situation, there are strategies and tactics that can deliver the response rates you’re looking for.

Offer, Audience and Creative…the Three-Legged Stool of Direct Mail

Dozens of considerations go into any DM campaign, but the three “load-bearing” factors that’ll make or break any campaign are offer, audience and creative. If one of these is weak, the entire campaign can collapse like a two-legged stool! Let’s look at a couple of scenarios where the offer, audience and creative work together to get noticed and get results.

Challenge #1

An established Toyota dealership seeking to expand its footprint and product line opens a Lexus dealership 30 miles away. The priorities are to lift awareness, encourage showroom visits, and generate sales.

3-Point Solution

Offer: A free portable DVD player for taking a test drive is offered, plus a free installed entertainment package in a new Lexus purchase.

Audience: The audience consists of high net worth customers of the existing dealership, plus a purchased list of similarly modeled prospects within 20 miles of the new dealership.

Creative: A 3D package with a video catalog and the free DVD player offer on the outside gets the piece opened and drives the audience to the new dealership. An inserted card provides variable messaging to customers and prospects. To further lift response, an oversized postcard repeating the offer is mailed as a “last chance” reminder two weeks later.

Why it works

The carefully targeted audience has propensity to purchase and ability to pay. The offer is appropriate to both product and audience and is likely to encourage dealership visits. The creative suggests value, gets attention and will probably be opened. The highly attractive offer encourages the desired response. The second-touch postcard also typically lifts response.

Challenge #2

A developer is selling waterfront home sites in a new gated golf community in the coastal southeast. Creating awareness among qualified prospects, generating leads (reservations) and closing sales are priorities.

3-Point Solution 

Offer: Accommodations, golf, seafood, helicopter rides and other activities are offered at a free grand opening weekend, plus “VIP preview discounts” available that weekend only.

Audience: An audience of golf, travel and vacation enthusiasts living in the northeast, having a high net worth and with children at home is carefully selected.

Creative: A multi-panel self-mailer with full-color property photos and attention-piquing headlines draw readers inside for details. The “free” offer is prominent to generate qualified leads through toll-free reservation calls.

Why it works

The multi-layered offer creates excitement. Language like “be among the first” and “for two days only” adds a sense of urgency. Sending this in February offers the northeastern audience an added incentive to book a free warm-weather trip. The creative uses photography on every panel of the self-mailer, showing the property and the surrounding area drenched in sunlight to appeal to winter-bound prospects. The copy features sumptuous details to create a sense of luxury and positions the offer as an “exclusive invitation to a select few” to flatter.

The creative challenge—effective communication

The purpose of your custom creative is to get your message read and drive your recipient to action. When it’s done effectively, it’ll lift your response rate. Take a look at your DM creative with a fresh eye and determine how well it passes the AIDCA test:

Attention – make an impact; grab your reader’s attention

Interest – present your proposition

Desire – build up the benefits and introduce offers

Conviction – overcome doubts and objections with proof (or testimonials)

Action – call-to-action, with an expiration date to create a sense of urgency