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Look to your past successful efforts One of the first things to bear in mind is that an insert program can build naturally on your established strengths. Oftentimes, you can feature a proven product or offer that’s been popular in your solo or catalog mailings (or something similar, if at all possible). You’ll want to start out with the time-tested price points, features, and promotional approach that have drawn responses for these items or offers in the past. (Inserts can be a good place to test pricing, a topic which we’ll discuss in a later article.) Of course, you’ll want to choose a medium, which reaches people who resemble your present profitable customer base. A number of programs offer you a “profile” that’s a good match to the majority or a distinct segment of your current buyers. Several have a strong skew toward families with young children, for example. Teenagers make up another distinct market. Small business owners are clearly identified in many programs. Working women are yet another identifiable group. Then there are the pre-retirees over 50, the fastest-growing group in the nation. And the 65+ generation is also growing, and still very responsive to their mail. “Tailoring” Your Offer to Your Prospects” One of the real advantages of today’s co-op mail and package-insert programs is that you can generally identify the prospect group, either demographically or by what they bought and what lists the buyers originally came from. In a majority of cases, most of them fall within a specific age, income, or life-style group (working women, mothers, health-oriented buyers, gardeners, older consumers, etc.). Smart marketers will “customize~~ graphics and copy on inserts going into these programs to attract the targeted consumer’s attention using language that speaks to these identifiable prospects directly and forcefully. Our colleagues in general advertising follow a similar path as they practice “media mapping”: a technique whereby packaged goods advertisers and others promote the same brands in a different manner to different audiences. Not only are the models in the advertisers appropriate to the audience targeted by the publication, TV show, etc., but the language of the ad, the style of speaking or writing, the offer and the graphics are fine-tuned to appeal directly to a “niche” audience, whether college students, young parents, seniors, Latinos, or Afro Americans. For example, Dial Soap is promoted as a “noseguard” in Sports Illustrated.., as a “stress-management tool” in Fortune.. .and as a “selfesteem boost” in Parents. The copy and photos are designed to win the empathy of each group. When you can reach many millions of potential customers with shared characteristics in one mailing (such as a targeted co-op), you have a real opportunity to improve the “pulling power” of your printed inserts, very efficiently and with only a little cost and effort. You can feature self-identifying label-words common to the group, like “Mother” or “Grandma” or “Working Mothers” in headlines and body copy, along with appropriate photographs. You should speak exclusively and directly to the individual as part of this specific audience and keep generalities to a minimum. This will definitely make your product seem more relevant and personally appealing to this select audience. While many of the early ventures into this area utilized standardized inserts for inclusion in dozens of different programs, it has been proven over and over again that creating and designing inserts specifically for individual (or similar) insert programs can bring much better results. Because response to inserts generally is in the range of 1 to 10 per 1000, a very small improvement in response can make a big difference to the bottom line of a program— especially when you get up into the millions (or tens of millions), or total circulation spread out over a year or more. The time, effort, and upfront expense involved in creating a “custom” insert will almost always pay off over the long run. You can sell the same thing to different people in dozens of ways—each most appropriate for the specific audience you’re appealing to. Determining the best offer for an audience Before you decide to adapt one of your standard or “control” offers, or try to create a new offer out of the blue, you’ll want to study the audience reached by the medium in which you’ll be placing your inserts. Find out from the sponsor, manager, or your broker as much as possible about these consumers: their ages, interests, income, lifestyles, and past purchasing habits. If the distribution is to catalog buyers, get a copy of the catalog. If lists of magazine subscribers are part of the distribution mix, get copies of the publication and advertising media kits and examine them carefully (look particularly at the mail order advertisers, if any, in these publications). We conduct continuing, extensive research on our own co-op recipients through surveys, focus groups, etc., to help our participants and prospective clients learn more about our audience (including their usage of and need for the specific product or service). And we compare this data with information on responders to other offers in the past for products or services similar to theirs. Look for demographic and lifestyle indicators We’ve found that millions of consumers in a given age group share many common interests and can often be motivated to respond by an approach taking these interests into account. Older consumers, for example, are almost always interested in convenience, quality, security—and they respond well to endorsements and guarantees. Many of these people grew up in an era when the Sears or Montgomery Ward catalogs were staple sources of products they simply couldn’t buy at the local stores. And now, with a bit more disposable income, credit cards, and a large extended family, shopping by mail can be a pleasurable and convenient experience for them. They may even become your very best continuing customers. When you’re mailing in a medium targeted largely to this group, you’ll want your offer to appeal to their particular point of view. Remember that by and large, these are experienced shoppers, not easily swayed by exaggerated promises—and definitely not willing to put up with shoddy products or poor fulfillment performance. You’ll want to stress benefits, which show them how your product or service can make their lives easier, more rewarding or enriching. Ply them with testimonials from authorities, or from people their age with similar lifestyles. And let your graphics show vital and vigorous older people in the act of enjoying or using your product. Remember to keep your type a bit larger to compensate for poorer eyesight. Conservative type styles, colors and layout work best. Shift gears as the audience changes Younger adults should be approached in a very different fashion, with emphasis on the new, the stylish and quick gratification of their desires. Graphics should be brighter and more contemporary. These are impulsive, impatient, on-the-go people who are generally very active socially. If you offer premiums as an ordering incentive, you’ll want to select items tuned in to their tastes—videos, novelty telephones or radios, or stylish accessories seem to work well with this group. Copy should be brief and catchy. They won’t sit still for long copy or explanations. Use photos or diagrams to explain a complex idea. Subscription terms should be kept shorter; and payment terms should be stretched out. Be sure to structure your offers to avoid as much as possible poor payout and bad credit. But there is definitely a shift once these young people settle down, get married, and have children. Responsibility (for the family unit, their credit rating, and the welfare of the children) becomes a paramount concern. With the mini-baby boom now going on, this is a vibrant and growing audience—very profitable if it is approached properly. Offers aimed at young parents or working mothers should feature strong appeals to maternal concerns, activities that can be shared with the children, and settings in a warm home environment or in shared leisure activities. This is a terrific continuity audience, which can be developed to buy from you for years to come! For these busy parents, you’ll want to stress timesaving or convenient features, product durability and safety, and good value. Information is a dominant need here, so reprints, booklets, manuals or instructional videotapes are excellent premiums. Try to feature photos of a child of the approximate age of those in most households reached by the medium in which your insert will be carried—babies, pre-schoolers, school kids, or teenagers. If two or more age groups are involved, look for or create graphics that show a multi-child family. You want the reader to identify as much as possible with your piece. If a particular sport, recreation activity, or hobby is common to a significant number of the recipients of an insert-carrier program, by all means include a reference to this in your graphic, and perhaps in your copy as well. Even a reference to this in your graphic, and perhaps in your copy as well. Even a fishing hat on the table, or a golf club casually propped by the door can help win over an audience of enthusiasts, without alienating the others. The right-looking people doing things that your audience does (or would like to be doing) can combine in a strong emotional appeal. Show grandparents with grandchildren, and pet lovers with dogs, cats, birds, fish—whatever is appropriate. Although the creation of these “individualized” inserts may cost from a few hundred to several thousand dollars initially, the added “lift” that they will bring should pay off your investment in a matter of months. If you’re out to optimize response, this is a sure-fire technique that’s proven itself over and over again. Making money at a response rate of 1 to 10 per 1000 Typical response rates for an insert in a package or co-op environment range from 1 to 10 per 1000. But because the entire cost of participation (including printing) runs about 10% of the cost of solo mail, the cost-per-response figures balance out. Some of the larger circulation programs let you reach into millions of households in a very efficient manner, helping you to uncover new markets or to discover new “hot spots.” And any offer, copy graphic or format that can raise this response rate even a fraction of a percentage point will pay off handsomely! Aiming for long-term profitability Although we have several long term advertisers who consistently make money on the initial order, a number of the most successful users of insert programs don’t aim to “break even” on their prospecting programs. They make their profit down the line, with repeat orders, bounce-backs, subscriptions or continuity programs. Their paramount concern is simply to bring in as many qualified responses as possible. An Inexpensive experiment Almost any company can afford to prove for itself whether or not an insert program will work cost-effectively. Production charges can be held to a minimum—especially if you have photos or even color separations on hand. We regularly help our clients to position their offers and to design attractive and eye-catching insert presentations. And you don’t even need very large quantities to get started. To get a valid reading on response, and to properly evaluate both the media and the insert itself, you can test as few as 10,000 pieces in the typical package-insert program. However, in a widely circulated program with several million recipients, it’s wiser to schedule tests of at least 100,000 pieces to get a reliable reading. A continuing flow of order year-round Once you determine format, price point, headline, copy, and graphics that bring in satisfactory (or better) response levels, you’ll find that you can utilize insert programs year-round to keep new business flowing in. This can serve to “even out” the peaks and valleys from your established cycles of solo mail. And you may also be able to get the jump on your competition by using these regular, continuing programs to test new products, approaches, strategies or markets. New time, we’ll discuss “tailoring” your offer to your prospects. In that article, I’ll demonstrate how just a few select words and graphics can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your basic offer. | ||||||
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