What Direct Marketers Don't Know by Steve Cuno

WHAT DIRECT MARKETERS DON’T KNOW By Steve Cuno What Direct Marketers Don’t Know
irect marketers are an arrogant lot. As one of them, I should know. True, day in and out of doing “measurable advertising” does put us in a position to learn a thing or two about laying out envelopes, composing sales letters, positioning 800 numbers in TV spots, etc., etc. All of which makes us tedious conversationalists at cocktail parties, not to mention at home around the dinner table. It also makes us think we know everything because ours is, after all, “scientific” advertising, while we disdain what we diminuitively call “general” advertising. So, for a change, I thought I would share with you a deep dark secret: We direct marketers really don’t know everything. We don’t know what kind of response you’re going to get out of the chute. When your ad, spot or mailing debuts, you may establish a fairly reliable baseline for projecting future response. But not before. No matter what you’ve heard to the contrary, there is no such thing as an average response to expect. We don’t knwo who, if anybody, wants what you’re selling. You may have research, but beware. The Coca-Cola company researched New Coke, which the best DM-ers in the world couldn’t have sold. A responsible direct marketer	tests small segments of several markets before spending big money. Such testing often yields surprising insights as to who the market really is. We don’t know if you’re using the right offer the first time. Offers are an indispensable pillar in DM strategy but, like markets, they require testing to find the best one. For one large-ticket item, we discovered that offering an information packet increased response by 10 times over offering nothing. But offering a free jar of honey increased response 20 times. We don’t know if the creative is right the first time. Like markets and offers, creative work requires testing. Sure, we have our infamous list of do’s and don’t’s. They help us avoid dumb mistakes there’s no excuse for repeating, but not even the strictest compliance ensures a winning effort every time. Other stuff we don’t know. We don’t know what the weather will be when your direct marketing hits. (Rain increases response. )We don’t know what the political climate will be. (“Imported from Iraq” is still not recommended bullet copy. )Or what will be happening in the news. (When a helicopter crashed the same day a direct mail promotion for a copter-shuttle hit the same market, response was not too hot. )	We don’t know if you’re charging too much or too little for your product. We don’t know when someone will find Moonies in your logo. We don’t know if your spokesperson will be charged with child molestation. Direct marketers know a lot about what works, and what doesn’t. But there remain enough variables that it’s no wonder we like to discourage clients from bringing us do-or-die projects. Should a project fail out of the chute, it’s too easy to conclude that direct marketing has failed . . . when maybe we should be re-examining price, market, offer, appeal, etc. Winning direct marketing takes experimenting and fine tuning. That is where the real science lies.
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