SMA Summer 2006 Newsletter

Testing Your Way to Direct Mail Success: 61-page Guide
Book Review: Web Usability Made Easy
2005 ECHO Awards Review, plus Winning Landing Pages
Build your mailing list through co-registration
Where to put your opt-in offer, and how to boost opt-ins
Email Newsletter Design Best Practices
Time- and Event-Triggered Emails
5 Steps to More Effective Online Ads

NEW! Testing Your Way to Direct Mail Success
A 61-page Guide by Karen Marchetti

SMA clients may download a complimentary copy by clicking here

Do you know how to conduct a valid direct mail test? What about "Power Testing" in small quantities for faster learning? How do you know if your results are statistically significant?

Testing is key to maximizing your direct mail investment. And you should be testing each time you mail. This Guide will walk you step-by-step through the process - to help you construct a valid test, analyze the results - and test your way to success!

Includes:

What you can learn from direct mail tests

What to test first (and second, and third . . .)

List testing ideas - plus 42 Offer testing ideas, and 24 ideas for testing Creative elements

5 key elements of valid tests

Tips for testing Lists, Offers, Creative elements, and Creative packages

Tracking codes - tips for creating, capturing, and recording them in your database

How to analyze results from lead generation tests

Plus, formulas for: selecting random list samples, computing sample size, Cost Per Order, Cost Per Dollar Revenue, statistical significance, and rollout estimates.

See sample test grids for:
Testing versus a control
Balanced and unbalanced tests
"Power Tests"
Testing mail with other media
Testing mail versus other media

Each page includes an outline of the main points at the top, plus a full (but easily scan-able) explanation below - making it a breeze to locate the points you want to refer to.

   - Get maximum return from your direct mail programs
   - Learn at your own pace, anywhere, anytime
   - Use the Guide as a reference - with sample test packages, tips for conducting tests, testing ideas, formulas, sample testing plans, analysis formulas - and more!

Most complete and comprehensive testing guide available
There are many great books available on Direct Marketing - but most cover testing in a few pages, or maybe a chapter. This 61-page Guide combines the best points from the top books, trade journals, seminars and conferences - with Karen's personal 25+ years of experience. It's truly the most complete and comprehensive testing guide available!

Easy, convenient way to learn - with Notes already taken for you!
The Guide's easily scan-able pages allow you to learn faster, and quickly locate the sections you want to refer to. It's like taking a comprehensive seminar - but at your own pace, when and wherever it's convenient for you - with Notes already prepared!

Individual access                                             $59  Add to Cart
(for a single individual, for that individual's own private use of the Guide)

Corporate access                                           $149  Add to Cart
(for an unlimited number of individuals within one organization)

Web Usability: Think "Glance" and "Scan"
Book of the Month: Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

Well-known web usability expert Steve Krug advises to "make everything obvious and self-explanatory". What's his definition of "self-explanatory": ANYONE on any page can tell what it is and how to use it, just by looking at it.

His thousands of usability studies (conducted by sitting with individual web surfers, watching their actions, and asking them to "think out loud") have led him to conclude:

Visitors want to be able to figure out your web site at a GLANCE.
They want to be able to SCAN to find what they're looking for. (He recommends avoiding the use of pull-down menus as part of your web navigation. They're not visible to the scanning visitor - which is pretty much everyone.)

Krug covers:

How we really use the web

What users want in navigation

The best practice of "persistent navigation": same place, every page

Home page design - what should be there, and the 4 questions to guide you

How to design for scan-ability

Creating a clear visual hierarchy

Links: why they aren't obvious to visitors in many cases

4 ways to anger visitors, plus 5 ways to increase goodwill

The renewed importance of "above the fold" copy
He points out that web pages should be "design-driven". You should figure out where you want the major items in terms of layout, and then write copy to fit the layout.

The book includes a 6-point usability test to test your own site's navigation.

Note from Karen Marchetti: "After reading the book, I took his 6 points and added 6 more for a 12-point navigation checklist. I applied the 12 points to www.SMAresource.com - check out the new navigation on the home page."

Buy the book

Build Your Email List Faster Through "Co-Registration"

If you've got an opt-in offer - a free newsletter or white paper - that you use to gather email addresses of prospects, why not partner with others going after similar prospects?

Ask another company that targets your audience if they'll put your opt-in offer on their site's registration form - if you'll put THEIR opt-in offer on your site's registration form.

This way, the prospect completes only one registration form - but can choose from multiple options to sign up for.

Or, you can pay the other company per registration they obtain for you. Be sure to keep track of how well registrations from each site convert to customers, so you'll know which sites are generating prospects cost-effectively for you.

Where to Put Your Opt-In Offer, plus Boosting Sign-ups

The upper right column of your web site is for special offers. If you have an opt-in email offer, be sure it appears on EVERY page of your site. As more of your site's pages become indexed by search engines (hopefully!), visitors could enter your site on virtually any page. Be sure they see your key offers no matter what page they start on.

How to boost opt-in sign-ups?

Ask only for email address. All the other "nice to know" elements can be asked for over time - and will reduce your response if asked for upfront.
Include a link to your privacy policy.
Include a link to view a sample email from you.
Add bullet points that answer the question, "What's in it for me?" if I sign up for your offer.
Include the call to action - e.g., "SUBSCRIBE" - on your response button.
Ask visitor to add your "from" email address to their contact list before finishing the sign-up process.

Email Newsletter Best Practices
Part I: DESIGN

Email preview panes are now the norm with a number of the major email programs. And more recipients are blocking images. Conclusion: don't make your newsletter masthead the first element in your email.

List just the headlines of your articles first, above your masthead (see the newly-revised top of the SMAresource newsletter). Those headlines will appear in the email preview window, to encourage the recipient to open the email. And if the recipient is blocking images, those headlines will still appear. (If you position your masthead first, and the recipient is blocking images, all that might show in the preview pane is a blank space.)

Part II: SUBJECT LINE

Subject Line best practices for getting your email opened:

Write a subject line that is more FACTUAL, as opposed to PROMOTIONAL. Consider using "news", "newsletter", "tips",or "update" in your Subject Line. Or have your Subject Line relate to some breaking news story. That's because your opt-in names requested information - so give it to them.
Include your company name or brand name in the Subject Line.

Using Time- and Event-Triggered Automated Emails

Have you thought about how to automate your prospect follow-up . . . or past customer reactivation . . . or shopping cart rescues . . . or your loyalty program?

If you're sending out any type of follow-up emails to prospects, are those emails really SELLING (i.e., doing the job of a salesperson)? Are they gathering more information from prospects, and moving prospects through your sales process?

What about visitors to your site who load something into your shopping cart - but then never complete the purchase? Do you have a way to send them an email, encouraging them to complete the purchase?

Do you periodically send inactive customers special offers to encourage reactivation? What about your existing customers - what special offers could you make to them, as "customers-only" loyalty-building offers?

There is probably an entire "library" of email messages that you could be using. This "library" could be driving more sales cost-effectively, as well as cost-effectively shortening your sales cycle. Many contacts that could be handled by a telemarketing call could probably be done more cheaply (and many times, more effectively) by email.

5 Steps to More Effective Online Ads

1. Get to the point. As with direct-response print ads, headlines that don't promise a clear benefit won't be effective. Why? People flipping through a magazine or newspaper don't read every ad line-by-line, word-for-word. They scan. If they aren't attracted by your benefit headline, they're not going to read further to figure out what it is you're selling. And it's the same with online ads. Don't be coy or "tease" - your audience likely doesn't have time for that, and won't click on anything that doesn't promise a significant benefit.

2. Brand is key in an online ad. A recent study by Starch Communications found that you have about 3 seconds to catch a viewer's interest. Their conclusion: brand should be the first thing a person sees. If you're using animated ads - where messages and/or images rotate, be sure your brand always appears in view. For static ads, include the brand prominently. Be sure your brand is visible "at a glance".

3. Focus on the benefits. Similar to the brand issue above, be sure your benefits come first in an animated ad. Not sure of the difference between features and benefits? Benefits focus on RESULTS and answer the questions, "What's in it for me?" and "Why should I buy YOURS?" Be sure your ad doesn't focus on describing your product or your company. (No one cares about your product or company - they only care about what you can do for them!)

4. Be sure one image dominates. The effectiveness of your ad is in direct proportion to the size of the largest element. Use your space wisely, by making one image dominate as a focal point. That single dominant image will help draw the eye to your ad.

5. Be sure there's significant contrast between background colors and type colors.
The Starch Communications study validates what Direct-Response Design guru Colin Wheildon has found from his 9 years of research: don't make your background color match your type color. Wheildon found that screens of 10% (no more) helped draw the eye to the copy. But when the screen was in the same color as the type (e.g., 10% blue screen, with 100% blue copy), comprehension went down.

May SDDMA Seminar Recap:
ECHO Winners Illustrate 6 Points,
Plus, Latest Landing Page Research

The DMA's 2005 ECHO Winners:

Focus on answering the question, "Why should they buy OURS?" But what really makes these packages great, is they . . .
Answer the "Why OURS" question with prove-able SPECIFICS.
Involve prospects with the brand (Land Rover used an interesting web quiz to reveal insights about the prospect)
Begin the sales presentation by leading with EMOTION.
Are easily SCAN-ABLE - by reading just the headlines and subheads, you get the entire story.
Utilize a SERIES of mailers and/or email messages, to move the prospect through the sales process (see article, Time and Event-Triggered Emails)

The latest landing page study from MarketingSherpa reveals:

The "stay" or "bail" decision is based on whether the page is relevant to the visitor - and the first 15 words are critical for determining that relevancy.
There is a primary "triangle of attention" that the eye is drawn to. Logo and tagline in upper left corner naturally draw the eye. But after that: hero shot (main product photo) below the logo, main headline on the page to the right of the hero shot, and key offer in right column form the top line of that "triangle". Below those elements, you want easily scan-able copy that relates to hero shot and main headline to draw the eye.
Tag line below logo gets high viewership - so be sure to use a good one. Use the tag line to explain the key benefit of your site - and why your site is different. (Tell visitor why they should stay and check things out.)
Captain below hero shot also gets high readership, so be sure to use one.
Every page needs a headline.
Links on a page get high viewership.
The way your response button is worded can make a huge difference in response!
Just building a follow-up list? The less information you ask for, the higher your response. If you really only need email address, don't ask for anything else to maximize response.
Landing pages (and web pages in general) should be "design-driven": make a list of the elements that need to be there, plan the layout to place the most important elements above the fold and to move the eye through the page, and then write copy to fit the layout.
Just as with direct mail, if you're trying to get a sale from a landing page (as opposed to getting a lead), or if lead QUALITY is an issue, you'll need longer copy.

(Karen Marchetti's May SDDMA 3-part seminar reviewed some of the 2005 ECHO winners, Steve Krug's web usability points -- see "Book of the Month" article, and the latest landing page research. See more ECHO winners at Karen's direct mail presentation, "What You Can Learn from the DMA ECHO Awards" at Mail Expo on September 20.)