Are there DM formats that are consistent winners?

In these days of difficult times for most direct mail newsletter marketing, could there be tried and true formats that work consistently for most business newsletters?

I found some notes in my files of a study we did at United Communications Group on this question. With our then-new fulfillment system, we could see whether sample issue mailings worked as well for bankers, say, as for auto dealers or differently.

First, of course, we had to determine what "format" all of our previous mailings had been and enter the results for each in our system. When the dust settled, we had defined 44 "formats," although some were oddballs that had only been mailed once or twice.

An example. We had a graphics title that wasn't doing well and one of the marketers came up with a knockout package, "It's a Jungle Out There," with menacing big cats illustrated crawling over the envelope and letter. It bombed.

But was it really a loser or was all we proved that nothing else we tried was selling this newsletter and this effort didn't either?

Consistent winners

But, here's the interesting part. We did find some consistent winners.

* Inserts. Usually a one-page, two-side flyer promoting a newsletter to an at least some-what related title. It cost almost nothing and brought the largest statistical response.

For my direct marketing title, the only "related" one we had was Postal World. Not a really close match, but inserts always paid off when done either way.

* Expires. You know this. Mailings to expires always bring in money. Please make sure you're doing them on a regular basis.

These two types of efforts are so unexciting that they can be overlooked--but not when you see profit ratios of 10-1 or more.

Top five package formats

Here are what we found to be the top five package formats from the roster we regularly used. Just about every business newsletter marketer could profitably use some or all of these.

* Affinity deals. Offer the association a nice discount in exchange for permission to use their envelope and logo, and include a letter on the association letterhead from the executive director about the "great new member benefit."

Allow the association to decide whether to pass along the entire discount to the members or split it between the association and the members.

* Implied affinity. When you cannot get the association to OK the full affinity deal, but you can get the list, a "Special Offer for Members of the Widget Association" package seems to work just about as well.

* Official memo. Use a "government agency look-alike" mailed in a Kraft envelope. In two different tests where we added a teaser copy to the "official envelope," the plain Jane version prevailed. We also tested Kraft vs. white, which made no difference in response.

* Sample wrap. That's a 4-page card-stock wrapped around a sample issue. It's usually about 20 percent cheaper than a traditional #10 package, which improves bottom-line results.

UCG liked the "truncated" version where the headline promises "7 Ways to Improve Your XXX," but gives only two or three and the prospect has to order to get the FREE special report to learn the rest.

I think most marketers do use a whole issue, usually compiled, with full stories.

* Forced free trials. FFTs were enormously successful at UCG and were used regularly for almost every title. Their overall rank would probably have been higher but, because they were so successful, over time we tested things like cutting the number of issues served and trying to FFT marginal lists which reduced their total score.

Most successful FFTs also included a follow-up mailing ("Recently you received...), sometimes with an insert with a list of "Your colleagues who recently subscribed." These were not gangbusters but they were almost always profitable.