I’ve been thinking about headlines recently. Oh, OK, I’ve been thinking about headlines since 1986.
Now, we all know that when it comes to writing ads, the headline is el primo. And we all quote, endlessly, various rules and strategies for creating them.
And with good reason. Headlines are all that stand between our carefully crafted, sweated-over body copy and the trash, the delete button or the flicked page.
So why is it that so many direct marketers, and not a few supposed dm copywriters, either ignore the outer envelope on a mailpack or deliberately avoid using it? Here’s the problem.
When your recipient picks up their mail, the first thing they look at – the only thing they can look at – is the envelope.
If it’s blank, you are leaving them to do the work of deciding whether what’s inside is relevant to them and could solve a problem they have. From not making good enough returns on their stockmarket to being unlucky in love.
The argument I have heard against – over and over again – is this:
“If we put text or graphics on the outer envelope, they’ll know it’s direct mail.
Er, actually they know that anyway. [To be said with rising inflection, teenage-style]
The PPI and envelope itself give the game away. And I’m sorry to disillusion the naysayers, but people just aren’t that interested in unmarked junk mail to wonder what’s inside.
Scientifically valid tests have proved time and again that writing a headline (yes, folks, that’s what we’re doing) on the outside of the envelope increases response rate – and therefore profit.
For a more emotional argument in favour, how about this.
You wouldn’t send an email without a subject line would you?
Well put, Andy.
Perhaps these naysayers you mention are simply daunted by the task of coming up with something compelling and clever to encourage the recipient to open their mail. It’s easier to insist the DM world is flat and use over-the-top flamboyance in the style of Readers Digest prize pool notifications as justification for their objections.
I treat unmarked mail with the same scepticism as mail with text. Whether I open it or not depends on if what it says actually resonates with me, my interests or my circumstances.
Text on the envelope reeks of marketing and nobody will open it? Pfff.
If all your DM is the same no matter who the recipient, then this may be the case, but if the intrepid marketeer who launches a campaign does their research and targets smaller groups (possible with any database programme worth its salt) then they can expect a measure of success – and measurable too if they do it right. Enough said.