Try These Mailer Creative Tweaks to Rev Response

In direct marketing creative, the devil that drags down response can lurk in the details. A recent Target Marketing magazine article by creative strategists Pat Friesen and Patrick Fultz suggests 19 little creative tweaks proven to pack response punch for e-mail and direct mail campaigns. Because DBM Designs provides data, print and mailing services for direct mailers, Friesen's and Fultz's "snail mail" creative tips struck a special chord, including the following 12 suggestions: 1) stand out from the standard postage look by creating your own indicia (within USPS rules); 2) push reader decisions with highly visible deadlines for action; 3) draw attention with copy "violator" design elements (and don't limit yourself to old-fashioned starbursts!); 4) check copy for active, engaging verbs in headlines, bullets and sentences; 5) use a signature sign-off on a personal letter because people respond to people not company robots; 6) embrace the standard P.S. because over 30% of readers scan the P.S. first; 7) have designer and copywriter work together for easy-to-read paragraphs of no more than five or six lines; 8) create copy "eye magnets" via highlighting, underlining, circling or "handwritten" notes; 9) keep marketing momentum by dropping pause-causing periods from headlines and subheads; 10) use data to take personalization beyond name fills to offers and copy relevant to recipient interests; 11) make sure wafer seals, fugitive glue or other adhesives don't create a mailer so hard to open that recipients toss it; 12) avoid iffy response by using "when" instead of "if." The immediate action implied by "when you call" will outperform the weaker, provisional "if you call." For more direct marketing creative tips and examples: http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/19-ways-to-punch-up-your-creative/