The offer should include at least these items:

• What is the product or service?
  This sounds awfully academic. But you have received direct marketing materials where you have not been able to figure out what they are trying to sell. There are gobs of copy and loads of illustration, but somewhere in that mess there is a product or service struggling to get out.
• What are the advantages or benefits?
  All advertising and promotion comes down to three things:
  •Features: aspects of the product or service that describe it to me
  •Advantages: aspects of the product of service that offer me some advantage
  •Benefits: aspects of the product or service that directly benefit me
  

The last two (advantages and benefits) are the most important. Why should I buy this product or service from you now? It could be one of the following:

• •A low rate
  •A low rate for a limited time
  •A combination of items or services that represent a bargain package
  •A discount off a normally higher price
  •A “soft offer”—delayed billing, installments, or trial period
  •A “hard offer”—up front payment based on free gift, special pricing, or other discounts
  •A “step-up offer”—more years on a subscription, a “prestige” level of membership, or more products at one time
  

• What is the price? Okay, you have my attention. Now, how much? This is where the offer somes in. You are going to tell me the price and also tell me why I should buy at this price. Here are some reasons:
  •You are a new customer
  •You are a member of an affinity group (teachers or auto mechanics, etc.)
  •You are a previous customer
  •You live in a certain area
  

• How do you order it?
  •800 number
  •Local phone number
  •E-mail address
  •Secure Web site
  •Mail-in form with check or credit card information
  •Drop by a business location
  •Bounce back (a pre-addressed, postage-free order form in the package with the recently ordered item)

• What are the details? You have me. I’m yours. Now, put some “icing on the cake”:
  •Free trial
  •Delayed billing
  •Additional discount if prepaid order now for a free gift
  •Free alteration, installation, accessories, etc.
  

Make sure that you provide a mechanism for more information. In some cases, the product or service cannot be ordered directly. There may be more information (perhaps a medical exam or credit check) required. So, you make the request for more information, which is the next step in the process.

How To Engender Action ? Make it Interactive

Have you ever peeled a label and pasted it on a sheet? Or licked a stamp and placed it in a box? Or checked boxes? Or torn or cut or de-perfed a coupon? Or inserted a form in an envelope? Or folded and taped or stapled a card? Or mailed anything back to anyone in response to a mailing?
They are all actions. Once someone take the first action, they usually go on to the final action ? ordering the product or service. Sometimes the action is merely tearing the reply card at a perforation and mailing it. Your name and address are already printed. There is a business reply mail indicia.

The key work is easy. Make it easy. Direct marketing is interactive marketing.

• Offer the hook. The offer ties in with another direct mail device called “the hook”. This is the enticement that accompanies the offer. It is a reason to act now of to act at all. Reasons to act now all come own to one thing ? a time limit, which is usually in the form of a: •Deadline date
  •Limited time sale
  •Inventory closeout
  •Time period
  •End of model year
  •Price increase coming
  

Hooks are inducements. They offer something for nothing. Of course, the kind of offer you make depends on the nature of your business, the type of prospect you’re talking to, and the purpose of you mailing. But there’s nothing like a good offer ? especially one with a good hook ? to induce action on the part of the prospect.

The offer is what you want the potential buyer to buy. It is the deal, the program, the product, the service, or any combination of them. The hook may have a “gimmick”. This is something that will get the recipient’s attention, like:

• •A key
  •An ID tag
  •A sample
  •A dollar bill
  •A sample plastic card
  •An imprinted date book
  •A coin
  

A gimmick is something that makes the recipient feel that they are getting something for nothing. It may be a “keeper” ? something that they will keep and perhaps use. More often, it is something they toss into a drawer to remain there for ages, eventually to be dug up by archaeologists who will try to figure out what is was. How often have you received a questionnaire with a dollar bill as a sort of bribe ? and then kept the buck and chucked the form.

A premium is different than a gimmick. A premium is an incentive. It is the extra added value that induces you to take an action. And there is also a difference between a gimmick, a premium, and a free sample. These often come down to a free offer. You must be careful to explain that “free” refers to a premium of some kind and not, perhaps to the entire offer.

• Explain the Rules. You may be a winner. Well, most of us are not. There are stringent rules for the use of sweepstakes and contests:
  •Full disclosure—tell the recipient the odds, what it takes to enter, and how the selection is made.
  •Award all prizes—You really should give away everything you promise.
  •Randomness—The selection of winners should not be influenced in any manner.
  •Eligibility—Even those who say “no” to the offer should be eligible to win.
  

Watch those asterisks. Too often there are so many desclosure rules and other explanations that your copy looks like a legal brief.

Go back to the top