What Are The Most Important Parts Of A Direct Marketing Campaign?

By "most important" I mean, which parts have the biggest effect on the success of your campaign?

If you ask many people about this, you'll probably get several answers.... As Jim Straw says, everyone is right, and everyone is wrong.... But it's still interesting to know what people think.

An example of what I mean is something Jeff Barker posted earlier.... He said "The best sales letter in the world won't sell very well if it's sent to the wrong market and if you really have what your targets want, then a very ordinary sales letter will do the job."

Clearly he says the target market is more important than a good sales letter....

I'm still testing all this out for myself (I don't pretend to be the Wizard of Web Marketing, but I DO keep on going and learn as I go along)....

However, here are some snippets from my reading....

Benjamin Suarez says that the success of a promotion comes down to one formula -- here it is (from "Seven Steps To Freedom II" p. 2-27 to 2-28):

Rate of sales in direct marketing =
Demand for the product x Selling effectiveness of promotion x Quality of the prospect x Efficiency of the media

Or for short it's due to "PPPM" (that's how I remember it)....

That is, you need
- a good product that people want
- a good promotion (sales letter, advertisement, etc.)
- the right target market (prospect)
- the right media to reach them (direct mail, magazine ads, newspaper ads, TV, radio, internet, etc.)

I think this is a great formula, because I agree, you do need all these elements for a blockbuster promotion. But it ranks all these elements equally.... It doesn't say that one is more important than the other.

Here's another viewpoint.... This is called the "40-40-20 rule", and it was developed by the great direct marketer Ed Mayer.

Before I go into the rule, let me share something about Ed Mayer....

This comes from an issue of The Gary Halbert Letter (I'm quoting this paragraph under fair use).... From the Sept. 3, 1987 issue....

Gary Halbert writes about Ed Mayer....

"Ed was known as the Dean of Direct Mail. He was a short, wizened, bald little man who could keep me fascinated for hours. He taught a 5-day course on the basics of direct mail for the DMA's educational foundation and his course was easily the most powerful I've ever attended."

Gary goes on to say that you still might be able to get some of tapes of Ed Mayer's course from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and recommends them if you still can....

Back to Ed Mayer's 40-40-20 rule. I found this in an interesting book, "Direct Marketing Success" by Freeman Gosden, Jr., published in 1985 (p. 9).

The 40-40-20 rule states that the success or failure of your direct marketing effort is due to:

40% - The Audience
40% - Who You Are, Your Product or Service, Your Offer
20% - Creative, Format, Postal

Here's what this means....

40% - The Audience

This is your target market. Your "starving crowd." If it's not targeted at the right market, it makes success difficult.

This means picking the "right" list for your product, for example, or the right magazine, or the right ezine, and targeting the right group of people.

40% - Who You Are, Your Product or Service, Your Offer

This is a combination.... "Who You Are" means things like, have they heard of you before? Is your audience "familiar" with your name already in a positive way? It could also mean third-party endorsements.... Even if they haven't heard of you, but you are endorsed by someone or a company they trust, it can go a long way to winning their trust too.

Your Offer means your price or the deal you are offering.

The offer is sometimes (but not always) encapsulated in the headline....

I've done my due diligence and studied headlines, and I do have a stack of headlines which I refer to. Here are a few which help to clarify the offer....

"Save Over 40% Off Retail And Receive A Travel Kit ($50 Value) Free With Purchase"

"Released At Last - 137 Perfectly Legal Ways To Get A Check Out Of Uncle Sam!"

"The Secret Of Making People Like You"

"How To Reap Unbelievable Profits As The Dow Jones Soars To Over 4000 In The Next 18 Months, And Then Crashes Like A Lead Balloon!"

"How I Started A New Life With $7"

"Give Me 5 Days And I'll Give You A Magnetic Personality... Let Me Prove It - FREE"

"$80,000 In Prizes! Help Us Find The Name For These New Kitchens"

In a nutshell, the "offer" means what will you get -- both what products and what benefits -- and for how much?

All those ads, where they offer you all those "free bonuses" -- that's part of sweetening the offer.

Anyhow, according to Ed Mayer, the offer, combined with who you are and your product, is 40% of your success.

20% - Creative, Format, Postal

This is the part everyone sees -- the copy, graphics, how the envelope looks (in direct mail), how a web site looks (online), etc. This is probably the most analyzed part, yet it is only worth 20% of your success, according to Ed Mayer's formula.

Probably people spend TOO much time on this, time which could be better spent on choosing the right target market, and improving your offer....

Well, those are a couple of points of view....

I'm not an expert in this area, just a student. But I like to think I'm starting to delve deeply into direct response both in my study and in my tests....

I noticed one element was missing from these two discussions -- the timing. As Gordon pointed out, this may be the most important element of all. I suppose it might show up in that the right elements - the audience, the product/offer/who you are, and the creative elements - could change over time.

Are these percentages the same today? Some say they have changed over time, or that they change for different types of promotions.... Freeman Gosden, Jr. says that in telemarketing, the list or audience becomes 60% (p. 10). That's because each call, when you count people's salaries you have to pay, is much more expensive in telemarketing than in direct mail, making the fact that a call is not wasted more important. Hence, the audience importance is increased....

Any comments on this? Do you know of other viewpoints I haven't mentioned? I'd love to get your comments....

- Dien Rice