Would you be happy with a one percent b-to-b response rate? Or are response rates becoming irrelevant?

For those newsletter and specialized information publishers curious about their colleagues' direct mail response rates these days, The Newsletter on Newsletters offers its own, in the spirit of full disclosure.

In mid-December (admittedly bad timing), we rolled out a standard #10 package written by Barbara Kaplowitz, of Big Huge Ideas. It offered a special report as a premium. It went bulk rate to U.S. addresses and First Class to Canada and Europe.

Exactly two months passed between the first order received and the most recent one--with, so far, a response rate of exactly 0.1 percent in paid orders.

England, for your possible interest, came in especially strong, with the remaining orders from the U.S., Canada and Germany.

We're not especially happy with that 1 percent rate, but people told us we should be.

Adam Goldstein, for example, told us, "Response rates vary widely, but for high-priced b-to-b newsletters, I'd say we're seeing rates anywhere from 0.3 percent to close to 1 percent. Rates are usually pretty close to what's expected, as I tend to budget conservatively."

Goldstein added, "One interesting trend I've seen is that soft offers--double and triple postcards, sign-and-return letters, etc.--aren't getting as high an upfront response as they have in the past. Perhaps people realize that the hard sell is coming later, so they don't want to be bothered."

Kaplowitz said, "Some people may think you need 2, 5 10 or 20 percent to talk about results."

Copywriter Mark Johnson said, "One of my b-to-b newsletter clients is getting about 0.5 percent and is pleased with that."

He added, however, "I've never been big on comparing response rates between different pubs with different prices serving different markets. It doesn't provide a whole lot of useful information."

Are response rates beside the point?

Copywriter George Duncan had this to add to the discussion: "As you may know, response rates for most newsletters have been down for some time, and publishers are shifting resources to what we used to call 'ancillary' products that have quicker sales cycles. Audio conferences are also making larger inroads into publishers' marketing plans.

"As to 'response rates' per se," Duncan continued, "they seem to be a thing of the past as more and more publishers measure results in terms of return on the marketing dollar, a variation on cost-per-order. If the mailing shows a profit, it's a success; if it doesn't, it's a loser.

"This may relate to the limited list universes newsletter publishers normally have to work with. Used to be, a 0.1 percent response to a $200+ b-to-b was the holy grail, but percents of response are considered fairly irrelevant now. Naturally, the dollar returns publishers are realizing are more dependent on a range of individiual factors--and they're proprietary, so there's not much else I can tell you," Duncan said.

Kaplowitz said the question we should be asking is, "What's our NPR?"--net profit ratio.

Put that way, we made $3.00 on every dollar spent--excluding creative, which will be amortized.

And that's what copywriter and consultant and publisher Frank Joseph told us. "Response rates are not becoming irrelevant. I don't think they ever were relevant. There's only one measurement to consider--dollars at the end of the day."

Duncan, Duncan Direct Associates, 16 Elm Street, Petersborough, NH 03458, 603-924-3121, fax [phone], www.DuncanDirect.com

Goldstein, MarketSmart, 10504 Great Arbor Dr., Potomac, MD 20854, 301-765-0402, fax [phone], [e-mail]

Johnson, 16 Spaulding Lane, Hollis, NH 03049, 603-465-3888, fax [phone], [e-mail]

Joseph, Key Communications Group Inc., 5617 Warwick Place, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, 301-656-0450, fax [phone], [e-mail]

Kaplowitz, Big Huge Ideas, 7702 Whiterim Terrace, #200, Potomac, MD 20854, 301-983-6634, fax [phone], [e-mail]