CREATIVE CORNER
Email Study Finds "Postcard-Style" Worth Testing

Some ideas to test in your next email campaign, as reported at the DMA Annual Conference last week in San Francisco . . .

• Postcard-style single image messages with a single call to action. Both email vendor Silverpop and research firm MarketingSherpa have found postcard-style emails to be highly effective.
• Include your brand name in the subject line. Silverpop believes this can get a "50% higher open rate". ("Open rates", in general, are suspect as indicators of effectiveness, because of the proliferation of email preview panes in systems like MS Outlook, Gmail, Earthlink, and others. When an email is viewed in a preview pane, it counts as an "open" - whether the viewer actually opens the email, scrolls the email within the preview pane, or never looks past the few lines displayed in the preview pane. So consider recommendations based on "open rates' to be worth a test, but not actually proven based on results.)
• Put your call to action in both a graphic and in a text link. Both consumer and B2B emails tend to have higher click rates when both types of call to action are included.

1. Do you have a complete view of each customer - all the contact (marketing cost), response (offers responded to), and purchase data (revenue) for that customer -- all in one customer record within your database?
2. Can you identify your best customers by name within your database?
3. Have you "flagged" your best customers within your database in some manner?
4. Does every employee who has contact with customers know who your best customers are, or how to identify them?
5. Can every contact employee determine the value of the customer (best, next-to-best, etc.) they're dealing with?
6. Do you know what percentage of your customers accounts for 80% of your revenue?
7. Do you know how much each of your best customers is worth to you in dollar profit?
8. Do you give your customers REASONS to be loyal to you?
9. Are you capturing data about your customers each time you email, telemarket, or mail to them? (Record the offer sent and responded to, items purchased, etc.)
10. Are you asking your customers about lifestyle, media, and other preferences periodically?
11. Are you segmenting your marketing efforts by customer value?
12. Do you know what marketing efforts and vehicles have brought in the most "best customers"?
13. Do you make your most valuable customers feel special?

#1 reason: the customer file is not built as a relational file.
(Yet, most marketers BELIEVE the reason is lack of an effective data mining software tool.)

#2 reason: lack of in-house database support.
(And many marketers believe that bringing in outside resources will cost 6 figures or more. For most smaller- to medium-size companies, there is no need to spend anywhere close to 6 figures to get your marketing database up to speed - to allow you to answer "YES" to all of the questions above).

SMA can analyze your situation, prepare your User Requirements Document, program your relational file, and create your user interface - usually in a matter of months. Contact us to take the first step today. You could be just MONTHS AWAY from a more effective marketing database - something that should be part of every marketer's action plan for 2007.

SMArt TIP
How to Test Mail With -- and Against-- Other Media

What if you wanted to test the effectiveness of direct mail versus print ads - and also the effect of direct mail working with a print ad?

	List	List	List	List	Pub	Pub
	A	B	C	D	E	F
Mail	10,000	10,000	10,000	10,000
Print Ad	Ad	Ad			Ad	Ad

The above test grid shows a List test of 10,000 pieces per List, for each of 4 Lists (shown in the top row), all using one direct mail package (shown in left column).

• List A and List B are Lists of subscribers to trade publications. Starting in the top row, and reading vertically (for Lists A and B), we can rent the List of subscriber names for direct mail, and insert a print ad into each publication, to test the effect of direct mail and a print ad together.
  • Note that we're testing 2 publications in this mailer-and-print-ad combination test, to allow us to compare results from publication to publication for more accuracy.
• List C and List D will be tested without any corresponding print ad, to test the results of mail alone. We're using 2 Lists to allow us to compare results from List to List.
• We'll also run print ads in two additional publications (E and F), without any corresponding direct mail, to test the results of print ads alone. (We're testing 2 publications for more accuracy.)

• Positioning
• Brand Message
• "What's In It For Me?" Messaging

1. Send us the web URLs, print ads, mailers, and other collateral from your key competitors.
2. We'll review the materials, and discuss the positioning/brand message of each key competitor - along with options for unique positions not currently occupied, or positions not marketed well - to give you ideas for enhancing your own USP, or identifying market positions you could take advantage of.
3. We'll also MAKEOVER a competitive element (print ad, web page, or simple mailer), to illustrate an approach that could be more effective among the competition.

1. Provide a meeting space, where half the chairs can be occupied by your staff, and half is up to us to fill. (Since we're inviting marketers outside of your company, we won't do any critiques of your own materials, just your competition. So you don't have to worry about us disclosing any information about you.)
2. Provide refreshments for all attendees.

If you'd like to arrange a SMArt session at your facility, please contact Karen Marchetti at 858-456-6122 or by email.

PACKAGE MAKEOVER: CAN YOU SPOT THE CHANGES?
Christian Education Warehouse Gets Record Response

	This 3-panel self-mailer's "before" is on the left. Notice in the "after" on the right: Mention of testimonials on the outer panel -- before the recipient even knew what the program was all about -- was removed. The confusing headline and graphic was changed to more compelling copy and a simpler graphic. We got more SPECIFIC about the special FREE offer
	Click Image to View Enlarged Format
	The "before" version of the inside spread took the eye on somewhat of a rollercoaster ride, with all the arrows and bubbles. The "after" design still moves the eye, but does so in a more normal reading manner. Graphics in the "after" don't overpower the copy by screaming "look at these graphics".
	Click Image to View Enlarged Format
	The "before" copy focused on "we've got a product to sell" - and jumped around from introducing the idea of a Bible Club, mentioning some of the details of the Club, pitching the offer and call to action, and then "whispering" the benefits as sort of an afterthought. The "after" version intrigues the reader with some involving questions first, and then introduces the solution. The offer is then pitched, and the unique benefits of this program are featured prominently. Only one purple arrow remains - allowing it to really draw the eye to the response device. Makeover results? Christian Education Warehouse reports they were overwhelmed with response - they had to call in temp workers to handle all the FREE Kit requests!