Excellent Direct Response Advice

February 10, 2010      Admin

Direct marketing pro (and publisher of Target Marketing) Denny Hatch, who’s seen it all, distilled a ton of experience into this article on direct response copywriting.

I’ll summarize some of his takeaways here, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t taste the full flavor of Denny’s entire piece (our ".edu" readers will be especially tantalized).

Take it from Denny:

  • The right offer should be so attractive that only a lunatic would say no.
  • Make it easy to order.
  • Inserting a deadline will create a sense of urgency. Choose your deadline carefully. A date too far in advance has no urgency. On the other hand, pick a date that’s too close and if for some reason the mailing is delayed, your effort is chopped liver.
  • If you have the budget, test direct mail alone, e-mail alone and a combination of the two.
  • The more of the key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that change behavior—that you can insert into your effort, the more powerful your argument. Those copy drivers are: fear – greed – guilt – anger – exclusivity – salvation – flattery.
  • Use flattery. Analyzing more than 1,000 mailings, the late guru Axel Andersson—a brilliant statistician—discovered that 42 percent used flattery.

I know this stuff is old hat to you. After all, you’re an astonishingly successful fundraiser already … one of the best in the biz … people have mentioned your name to me. So just pass Denny’s piece along to one of your junior colleagues and they’ll be eternally grateful.

Tom

 

One response to “Excellent Direct Response Advice”

  1. Karen Zapp, copywriter says:
    February 11, 2010 at 10:25 am

    You’re right Tom; this is good stuff. And even if it is “old hat” it’s always beneficial to be reminded of the fundamentals. In sports, for example, winning teams always work on the fundamentals season after season.

    I could comment on any of the points above, but I’ll pick the last one. For fundraising I interpret this as writing a donor-centered letter. This seems to be particularly challenging for nonprofits to do for themselves (so immersed in the mission they struggle portraying an “outsider’s” perspective). But writing about what the donor is accomplishing; how indispensable they are; how they saved Billy’s life; how they put a roof over Molly’s head; and so forth makes such a difference in the tone and warmth of a letter.

    It definitely stimulates response.

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