Specificity and personalization strengthen headlines and salutations. (The DM Notebook).What's the best way to draw the prospect into your sales letter? Of course, once he has opened the envelope, statistically you're probably halfway home Halfway Home may refer to:
For business-to-business newsletter mailings, I usually like to repeat the envelope teaser teaser an animal used to sexually tease but not to impregnate the members of the opposite sex. Usually males and they may be surgically prepared to ensure that they cannot mate or are not fertile. as the letter headline. I assume that a great deal of business mail arrives on the prospect's desk separated from the envelope and he won't see that tantalizing tan·ta·lize tr.v. tan·ta·lized, tan·ta·liz·ing, tan·ta·liz·es To excite (another) by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach. copy unless you repeat it. Even if the prospect has both the envelope and the letter in hand, there's a certain rhythm in reading once again the teaser that got him to open the envelope. I do not subscribe to Verb 1. subscribe to - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day" subscribe, take buy, purchase - obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company"; any hard and fast rules about headline copy (i.e., "Never longer than seven words The Seven Words may refer to:
I can think of a couple of things that I believe headlines should not do. I seldom mention discounts and savings in a headline. If your newsletter package is constructed as many are, the prospect opening the letter doesn't yet realize this is a publication offer, and may never have heard of the newsletter, so shouting "Save $60" in the headline is just confusing. The exception here is the situation where you know the prospect knows the publication. Get Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated is the largest weekly American sports magazine owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. It has over 3 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men, 19% of the adult males in the country. for a Full Year For Only $29.95--Lowest Price Available!! This is a good place for a Johnson Box A Johnson Box is a box commonly found at the top of direct mail letters, containing the key message of the letter. The purpose of it is to draw the reader's attention to this key message first, and hopefully grab their attention, enticing them to read the rest of the letter. (around the headline). Ordinarily you want to lead the prospect seamlessly from the headline into the body copy, but when your offer is great and easily understood, a Johnson Box headline might take them directly to the subscription order form. This "direct approach" can also be effective for an opening sentence in a letter for an established or "mature" newsletter. "This is your invitation to subscribe to the Kiplinger Washington Letter for the lowest price available to any subscriber." (If it were a launch mailing for a title the prospect has never heard of, this is obviously not so attractive an offer.) My second "no-no" is to never phrase a headline in the form of a question to which the prospect can answer "no" and stop reading. Is Your Widget Pronounced "wih-jit," for decades, the term has been a popular word for a generic "thing" when there is no real name for it. It is often used to describe examples of made-up products along with other fictitious names; for example, "10 widgets, 5 frabbits and 2 dingits. Company's Largest Problem Building International Business? The salutation. As a rule, the more you can "personalize" it, the better. A caveat, though: personalization is expensive. Whether two-part (letter and order form) or three-part (closed-face envelope, letter and order card), the costs add up. When I was with United Communications Group, our test results showed, however, that it almost always paid off. My concern now is that some of those tests date back to the early nineties, late eighties. Has the novelty worn off? Are prospects no longer impressed when they read their name in the salutation and find their company name buried twice in the page-one text? I'd consider some new testing for 2002. That said, my old colleague and mentor Rene Gnam always cited tests he had done for education titles that showed that a "Dear Teacher" salutation was outpulled by "Dear Elementary Teacher" which was, in turn, outperformed by "Dear First Grade Teacher." The more specific the personalization, the better. Copywriter Steve Sahlein liked to say that the perfect salutation was, Dear South Central Florida
Central Florida is the central region of the United States state of Florida, on the East Coast. Franchise Motel Manager, You can open the letter in any number of ways. * The "premise trap" is a statement the prospect "has to" agree with. * The "conversational" or "narrative" style opens with an anecdote: "One day Congressional staffer Andrew Harper
Harper was born at Glasgow, Scotland. was looking out his office window and wondering, if what he liked best about his job was vacations and travel, why he couldn't find a job that was all vacations and travel." * But for one, all-purpose suggestion, I like the "collegiality col·le·gi·al·i·ty n. 1. Shared power and authority vested among colleagues. 2. Roman Catholic Church The doctrine that bishops collectively share collegiate power. approach": Dear Newsletter Marketer, If you are like me, everyday you are facing problems with... And, if it doesn't seem that the letter would be written by someone actually in the business, try this approach: Dear Funeral Director, If you are like the funeral directors across the country I talk with every week, you are facing problems with... |
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