Today’s insight is so simple and so straightforward, I’m not sure how to expand it.

I mean we all know this truth backwards and forwards… we just choose not to do it.

Perhaps it’s by neglect, perhaps by choice, perhaps because we “just don’t have the time.”

But I can tell you the most successful direct marketers I know are good at this thing.

What is the thing?

It’s the 8th thing that direct marketing legend Lester Wunderman says “All Successful Direct Marketing Companies Know.”

It’s this:

8. Create Relationships

Relationships continue to grow – encounters do not.The better the buyer-seller relationship, the greater the profit.

That’s a pretty big promise, don’t you think?

Let’s face it, we all know this is true but why don’t we do it?

As I alluded to above, I think we just get too busy on “more profitable” things.

But seriously, is there anything more profitable than a satisfied customer? Anything?

I don’t think so.

Consider this…

If a new customer costs you $500 then if he buys one time, that $500 expenses goes against your profits.

But what if that same customer now buys a second time? The cost of acquiring that customer just fell in half… and your profits jumped considerably on the second sale.

As I said, this is common sense. It ain’t easy to grow customer relationships, but it is profitable.

You see, that’s what makes direct response marketing and copywriting so powerful…

The original transaction was more than likely more like a conversation than an announcement. After all, that is what great direct response advertising and copywriting does – it engages the prospective customer in a dialogue of sorts.

Therefore, it is only natural to continue that conversation. And like any relationship, the more you engage the more it grows. But the flip side is that the more you ignore the relationship the faster it will dissolve.

I mean think about it…

How many “Best Friends” have we let slip away because we just got too busy to send a note or pick up the phone?

So the question becomes, What could you do in your business starting today to strengthen and extend your customer relationships?

Here are a few ideas off the top of my head:

• Send hand written thank you cards after a purchase.
• Send relevant interesting articles to them by email with no sales pitch
• Start a blog and encourage feedback on issues relating to your customers and your business
• Send a note to your customers about one of your customer’s businesses
• and many more…

Once you start looking for these ideas and ways to connect and grow the customer relationship, you’ll see opportunities everywhere.

I challenge you to list three ways in the comments below about how you could grow your customer relationships…

So, is it direct response blasphemy or not?

I’ll let you decide for yourself…

Here’s “Thing 7″:

Build the “Brand Experience”

“Customers have to know and feel the brand as an experience that serves their individual needs. It has to be a total and on-going immersion in satisfaction that includes everything from packaging, repurchase, and after the sale service and communications.”

Whew!

That’s a tall order, don’t you think?

Can you think of a company that comes anywhere close to that standard?

I can only think of two…

Apple and Disney. And actually Lexmark too now that I think about it.

You see, I bought a printer through one of the home shopping channels earlier this year and I have to say the packaging and instructions for the printer were absolutely stunning… I know, right?

Packaging as a way to satisfy a customer and create a customer experience… yes.

Apple does this well too. Another great example of packaging is Altoids – the breath mints.

But it’s not about just packaging… what about point of purchase?

Again I think Apple does this better than most at least in their stores…

I’ve spent alot of money in the Apple store this year and I’ve never even been to a cash register or checkout counter… how cool is that? My receipt was emailed to me and waiting in my inbox. And when I was done I didn’t feel so much like I’d bought a computer as I’d joined a club.

Crazy I know but that’s the feeling… and that’s the brand experience.

So how do you create that for your business?

In my opinion, that’s something that must come from the top down. It must be an owner led movement. Beyond that, just try to experience everything through your customer’s eyes…

And that is very direct response. So, no blasphemy here.

Can you think of another company where experience the brand?

If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below…

Famous Ad man and advertising copywriter Lester Wunderman says, “Yes.”

Of course, saying it can be done and actually creating advertising that is profitable are two very different things.

Before I continue down that road, let me share with you the  Mr. Wunderman’s complete statement.

This is the 6th thing all successful direct marketers know from a list he compiled and I stumbled across in his book Being Direct…

“6. The Next Step: Profitable Advertising

The results of advertising are increasingly measurable; they must now become accountable. Advertising can’t be just a contribution to goodwill – it must become an investment in profits.”

Dem’s fightn words on Madison Avenue…

Can you imagine The Big Ad Agency for Budweiser or Coke or Toyota having to account for every dime of advertising directly against the results it created?

They can’t do it.

So how do you make advertising profitable?

In short, you have to track every ad that goes out. You have to have your copywriter or ad agency or web person put a call to action with a order code or order extension or something on the advertisement. It’s there so that when a prospect responds or a customer buys, they give or send in the code and you know where the lead or sale came from.

Then, you do more of what’s working and drop what’s not working or not working as well.

Let’s see if I can put it in dollars and cents…

Let’s say you have 5 advertisements running at any given time. And for simplicity sake each ad costs you $200… so you’ve got $1,000 in advertising out there.

We’ll say two of those are billboards with your logo and maybe your address. These are big image or goodwill ads… so that’s $400 of your $1,000 budget.

Now, You also have a newspaper ad written by a direct response copywriter costing you $200. It has a call to action and maybe a coupon of some kind.

Then you have a more traditional ad like the newspaper guy told you to run. Then finally, you have some postcards with coupons on them that you mailed out to the area around your business.

Now obviously, these numbers are not to scale but here’s where we are at…

2  Billboards for total of $400

1 Direct Response Space Ad $200

1 Image Space Ad $200

1 Direct Response Postcard $200

Total $1,000

Stay with me and hopefully I can wrap this up in coherent manner…

Let’s say over the next week you get $5,000 worth of new business. Let’s also say that $$1,000 came from the direct response ad because people brought in the coupon to get the offer and another $2,000 came from the postcard offer.

And $2,000 came from some combination of the billboards and other space ad… you think. It could have been referrals, or walk-ins or… Fact is you don’t KNOW where the last $2,000 comes from.

Now, things get tight… the economy is suffering. Your customers are fewer. You need to know when you spend money on anything that you’ll get a return on your investment. Now, which of the 5 ads do you keep and which do you cut?

That’s what accountable, and ultimately profitable, advertising is all about. Tracking your ads and then doing more of what you KNOW works and less of what is just a guess.

Hope that makes sense.

I dare you to let me know your thoughts below…

We’ve been talking about Lester Wunderman’s “19 Things All Successful Direct Marketers Know.” And I am amazed that despite his success more people do not put his name in the same realm as Ogilvy.

Wunderman was responsible for many firsts in our industry and his book Being Direct is worth a read by every serious copywriter, marketing director and business owner.

One of the things Wunderman said  was that “Advertising Must Change Behavior, Not Just Attitudes.”

He went on to elaborate it like this:

“Favorable consumer attitudes go only part of the way to creating sales. It’s also the consumer’s accountable actions such as inquiries, product trials, purchases and repurchases that create profits.”

Truer words were never spoken.

Let me see if I can give you an example…

From time to time, I like to drink a beer or two. I don’t keep it stocked at the house and because I am not a regular drinker, I am not necessarily loyal to one brand.

However, I do watch a good bit of College football on the weekends (Go DAWGS!) and therefore see lots of beer commercials. So when I do go to the store I have “attitudes” or an image towards certain beer brands.

For instance I love the many entertaining Budweiser and Bud-light commercials. And recently, Miller light also has some entertaining commercials. So, my attitude towards these brands is that they are “fun.”

And while I am entertained, and while my “attitude” towards Budweiser is positive, I never buy Budweiser.

However,  I tend to be sold by the Sam Adams commercials. One in particular stands out is when they pointed out the fact that light ages beer – that’s why it is in dark bottles. But then Sam Adams took it a step further by pointing out that they make their 6-pack carriers taller to “keep out more light.”

Made sense to me and influenced my attitude in such a way that I took action… I changed my behavior from sitting on the couch drinking coke or sweet tea during a game to having a Sam Adams.

Interestingly, I still enjoyed the Budweiser commercials while drinking my Sam Adams.

Make sense? Can you see the difference in an attitude towards  a company or product compared to an accountable action?

I bet if you were to look around right now, you could find one item that you took action on buying and then think about a similar product that you have a favorable “attitude” towards but did not take action. What made the difference?

Feel free to share your example of attitude vs behavior in the comments below…

“Why should I?”

If your customer or prospect is saying those words after reading, listening or viewing your promotion, brochure, email, commercial or video… you are in trouble.

At least that’s the way our “guest contributor” and “the father of direct response” Lester Wunderman believes.

His 4th “thing” that all successful direct marketing companies know is this:

“Answer the Question ‘Why Should I?’

The most dangerous question a prospect or customer asks is ‘Why should I?’ And he may ask it more than once – but never of you. The product and its communication stream must continue to provide him with both rational and emotional answers.”

Whew! That’s a mouth full so let’s see if we can break it down a bit…

First, let’s look at the question itself – “Why Should I?”

Now here’s the good news, if the prospect is asking this question, then you have at least slowed them down enough that they did notice you… and that’s a good thing. But for some reason, they still have the question “Why should I?” in their mind.

So, your advertising copy has caught their attention but what now?

Mr. Lunderman talks about how the product and its communication stream must continue to provide [the prospect] with both rational and emotional answers.

Answers to what? Answers that satisfy the question “Why should I… buy your product or service?”

So how do we engage someone both emotionally and rationally in the same piece of advertising copy?

Let’s look at something simple like a new outfit for an upcoming meeting. Let’s just assume the event is a informal get together but that our prospect knows that there is a good chance some good business contacts will be there as well.

We’ll call our prospect “Sam.”

Sam goes to a store looking for just the right blend of casual and sophisticated. Not Armani but not flip flops and a Parrot-Head  t-shirt either.

So, Sam spots an outfit in one of the store window displays (This is kinda like a headline for a retail store) and decides to go inside. Once inside Sam takes the outfit and grabs the sleeve feeling for texture.

But why?

Because Sam has already made at least a slight emotional connection to the outfit… it’s not a deep connection yet but it is there. By touching the sleeve and feeling the fabric, Sam doesn’t even realize it but Sam is looking for a rational justification to keep exploring the decision to buy the outfit. Sam is asking and trying to answer the question “Why Should I buy THIS outfit?”

This goes on until either Sam decide the outfit is not worth the money or it is. And how does Sam make that decision?

A series of these one/two punches of emotion and rationalization.

Perhaps the store has good sales person that can lead Sam down that road just like a good copywriter can lead a good prospect to a buying decision in an ad or salesletter.

You see, Sam WANTS to buy and outfit. But the truth is Sam has plenty of outfits at home that would do the job. Truth is, the fact that Sam was out shopping at all was an emotional decision backed by years of pre-programmed rational.

After all the clothing industry has done a good job overall of convincing us that what we wear matters. And surveys have backed that line of thinking up thus creating a nice little loop of proof.

And I guess, that’s what we’re really getting at isn’t it… proof in your advertising copy.

If you can back up your emotional claims like “This outfit will look great on you and help you land that next big client.” and then you back that up with a savvy sales person who says, “You know Sam I was reading in GQ just last week how employers are 77% more likely to hire a well dressed person than one with a prestigious degree.”

Of course your proof needs to be true but you get the idea.

So where does this leave you, dear reader?

When you do any marketing of any kind, stand back and ask yourself…

If I was the customer looking at this ad, proposal, whatever…

Why would I want to move forward with my purchase? If you have a toughtime answering that question, you may need to bring in some help like a good copywriter to help you dig deeper and find out what emotional and rational proof you can use to satisfy the question.

I’d love to hear your comments on this post below…

Mr. Wunderman covers “19 Things All Successful Direct Marketing Companies Know” in his book Being Direct – Making Advertising Pay.

And this is his third “thing”…

To be successful as a direct marketing company, you must “Communicate with each customer or prospect as an audience of one.”

Now, instinctively, you already know this to be true, right?

After all, that’s why we’re given names… because we are individuals. We are not grouped together and shackled at birth with all the other kids born that day. And we should not be treated like we are.

It’s really common sense.

Yet so often you and I read ads, or hear ads, or see ads on TV that seem to be talking to no one in particular… what a waste of time, talent and money.

I mean some ad copywriters just don’t get it, do they?

Consider this ad I found today… (You can click on it to make it larger. Then once you’ve read it, hit your back button and come on back here and we’ll talk about it.)

This ad seems to talk to a group not an individual

In this ad there’s alot of  “us” and “we” and “our”. Not much “you” other than the headline.

Before we move on to a better use of a more personal ad, let’s see what else Mr. Wunderman has to say on the topic…

“Advertising must be as relevant to each consumer as the product or service is. General advertising and more targeted direct marketing must both be part of a holistic communication strategy.”

Now, I found the above ad in INC. magazine and used it because it was on my desk. The same is true for the next ad… same magazine, same audience.

It’s not perfect but it is definitely aimed at me – not a group of people.

Take a look…

This ad appeals to the individual consumer

In this ad, you’ll notice more “you” and “your” and “you’ll”.

They even are considerate of you as a business owner and appeal to your need to both drive traffic to your site and to save you money by offering you a coupon for $75 worth of FREE advertising.

See the difference?

What’s more, this ad is a tear out so you can keep it even if you don’t keep the magazine… that’s also keeping the prospect in mind. There is a backside to the ad too. It goes into a little more detail about how Google Adwords works and how that applies to “your” business.

Well, that’s really all there is to it. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments below.

Later,

McCool

Those are the words that from the second of “19 things All Successful Direct Marketing Companies Know”

But what else did Lester Wunderman have to say on the topic?

Let’s take a look-see, shall we?

“The product must create value for each of its consumers. It must satisfy consumers’ unique differences, not their commonalities.”

OK… STOP right there! How in the heck are we supposed to make that happen?

If you, like me, have ever wondered… How do I make, or even advertise, one product to satisfy multiple thousands of unique consumers-

Ahhh, there’s the problem, isn’t it? We’ve slipped into thinking about us and the product again – not the consumer.

So let’s see what else Mr. Wunderman has to say…

“The call of the industrial revolution was manufacturers saying, ‘This is what I make, don’t you want it?”

Hmmm, that reminds me of the famous quote of Henry Ford about his first assembly line automobile… “It comes in any color you’d like – as long as it’s black”

Imagine going to the market with that idea today… chance are, unless you had an extremely rare and highly desired product, you’d get laughed out of the market.

Let’s continue…

“The call of the Information Age is consumers asking, ‘This is what I need, won’t you make it?”

Quite a shift, huh?

So how does this apply to your product or service? Do you have to make a unique product or service for each and every customer?

No, I don’t think so. But, I do think that every product or service should start out like it is for an unique individual.

And that is the essence of this point, right?

Start with the consumer in mind. The old saying about starting a business is “to find a need and fill it.” and that is still good advice. Because, in order to find a need, you must think about a unique problem experienced by a real person.

Now, you’ve got the product or service… how does it make the consumer a “Hero”?

This is where advertising copywriters can really earn their pay.

It’s one thing to explain a product… to merely describe the features of a product.

It is another thing entirely to expand those features into benefits that a consumer can relate to.

But to really hit an advertising home run, you must find the unique benefits that create an emotional response in the consumer towards the product or service. As advertising copywriter’s we must break past “useful” – to “desirable” – to “can’t live without because…”

You see, in order for your product to make the consumer a Hero, they have to see what happens because of using your product. What is the effect of using, owning, having your product or service? Will they be a better mom and loved and adored by their children, their spouse.. even their own parents. What about the neighbors?

Maybe it’s an office product… will your consumer think: “because of this product, I will be the office hero.” It may not be that obvious, but that is the basic rational for most products or services… “How will this make me look to others?”

And controlling that response requires work… lots of work.

It requires knowing your consumer in ways your competition doesn’t.

When we as advertisers can honestly create a “gotta have it because…” mentality in the consumer’s mind with a product or service that delivers to an individual, then you’ve got a long standing hit that will be wanted by many consumers.

Because, let’s face it everyone wants to be a Hero in some area of their life.

Your thoughts?

This is part of a list of “19 Things” put together by Lester Wunderman, known as the “Father of Direct Marketing”.

So let’s jump into it shall we?

Direct marketing is a strategy, not a tactic…

“It’s not an ad with a coupon; it’s not a commercial with a toll-free number; it’s not a mailing, a phone call, a promotion, a database, or a website. It is a commitment to getting and keeping valuable customers.”

Those words you just read are not mine but are a direct quote from Lester Wunderman’s great book Being Direct – Making Advertising Pay.

Let’s talk about that statement…

At the moment I am writing this, I am working with a client who is a $300+ million per year direct marketing powerhouse. Over the years, their delivery method for both their products and services have changed. What used to be mostly print ads and publications has now moved online and is delivered through email and websites.

The tactics have changed, the media has changed, but the point of the business is still the same…

Find a customer, make them an offer that benefits them, sell them and build the relationship with more and new information, products and services.

You see, when you continue to build the value you provide to the customer, you are at the same time building the value of the customer…

Wow! that’s a hell of a good statement… Let me say that again with emphasis:

When you continue to build the value you provide to the customer, you are, at the same time, building the value of the customer.

At the risk of tooting my own horn, I have to tell you, that statement is powerful. That is a strategy around which you can build any type of business you want.

Because, you must continue to build the value after the first sale. If you don’t, there won’t be a second sale.

Now, instead of “talking past the sale” as I was told back in my face-to-face selling days, let me ask you…

How can you apply that stement or strategy to your business?

Do you see the difference in strategy versus tactics?

The floor is yours, dear reader, the floor is yours…

However, it’s one of the masters I never hear anyone talk about.

Yet he is responsible for some very big breakthroughs in our industry.

So here’s the deal…

I’m going to give you some of his accomplishments and his quotes and you tell me who this little-known master is.

All right?

Let’s get going…

He is considered by some as the father of direct marketing, to whom we owe the household name status of the American Express Card, the creation of the Columbia Record Club (the first successful forced continuity program) and the high profile of L.L. Bean.

He is responsible for creating those annoying but effective subscription cards that fall out of your magazines. He founded the first “virtual store”. He introduced pre-printed newspaper inserts and convinced Time, Inc to use an 800 number to sell their magazines.

Twenty-five years before anyone ever even heard of the internet, in a now famous speech at MIT, he described the sales relationship of the future as “interactive.”

Finally, here is his list of

“19 Things All Successful Direct Marketing Companies Know”

1. Direct Marketing is a Strategy, Not a Tactic
2. The Consumer, Not the Product, Must Be the Hero
3. Communicate With Each Customer or Prospect as an Audience of One
4. Answer the Question “Why Should I”
5. Advertising Must Change Behavior, Not Just Attitudes
6. The Next Step: Profitable Advertising
7. Build the “Brand Experience”
8. Create Relationships
9. Know and Invest in Each Customer’s Lifetime Value
10. “Suspects” Are Not “Prospects”
11. Media Is a Contact Strategy
12. Be accessible to Your Customers
13. Encourage interactive Dialogues
14. Learn the Missing “When?”
15. Create an Advertising Curriculum That Teaches as It Sells
16. Acquire Customers with the Intention to Loyalize Them
17. Loyalty Is a Continuity Program
18. Your share of Loyal Customers, Not Your Share of Market, Creates Profits
19. You Are What You Know

Whew! That’s a lot of stuff for one blog post.

So, here’s what we are going to do if you don’t mind coming back…

Over the next month, I am going to do my best to break down each of the 19 things above into a new post. A few may get combined into one post, we’ll just have to see how it goes.

However, what I need from you right now is your feedback on who it is that came up with this list. Any ideas? Any guesses?

Also let me know which of the “19 things” you find most interesting and why.

Or, is there one you disagree with?

Leave your comments below…

Later,

McCool