Electronic Direct Mail for Stone, Part II

CREATIVE
  Creative refers to the concept, format, copy and design of an advertising piece. Offer and list selection are probably the most-critical choices you are going to make, but if your creative isn’t effective, your campaign can fail.
  You need a list server, bulk e-mail program, other software or a service bureau to transmit e-mail marketing messages to your house file of Internet addresses.
  Doing electronic direct mail to AOL users is more difficult because most versions of AOL do not allow you to embed a URL link in the e-mail message, and embedded links are the most effective response mechanism for electronic direct mail.
  Here are some tips on shaping your direct e-mail:
  From line. What's one of the first things you do when you get a letter by snail mail? You look at the upper left hand corner of the envelope to see who sent it. Likewise, when people get e-mail, they look at the From line to see who sent it.
  You can use a company name (SharperStoneCare), personal name (Richard White), e-mail address (Richard@sharperstonecare.com), department address (SpecialOffers@sharperstonecare.com), anonymous address (23456@si.com), or just about anything you want. Generally, however, people pay more attention to messages from people they know.
  An attention-grabbing Subject line. You can state your offer (Get granite countertops for only $69.95!), offer something free (Free Stone Care Instruction Video Just For Asking), announce exciting news (Research Reveals How Stone Products Increase Your Home’s Value), appeal to the how-to instinct (How To Find Exclusive Marble Tiles For Your Bathroom), or ask a question (Want The Best Design For Your Kitchen?).
  The Subject line is like teaser copy on an envelope. Its only purpose is to get people interested enough to want to know more.
  Arouse curiosity by ending your line mid-sentence (To Cut Your Stone Maintenance Costs In Half Just…). Establish a personal feel with the "forward" abbreviation (FW: Here's Something I Think You'll Like). Create excitement with a "nuts" line (We're Going Nuts Trying To Reach You). Create familiarity with a "whoops" line (Whoops! Important Correction To My Last E-Mail). The possibilities are endless.
  However, the ability of programs to filter out spam (unsolicited) e-mail is also far-reaching. Certain words or punctuation can trip a spam filter in a receiving e-mail program; unfortunately, there’s no universal list of trigger words. You may want to use words like offer and save sparingly, and avoid symbols like ! and $ whenever you can.
  Get to the point quickly. Expand on your Subject line in the headline or first paragraph of your e-mail letter. Present your offer clearly and completely. If your Subject line says, Get $100 off your vanity top order, your first paragraph could say, "Try our RISK-FREE 30-day trial of Shopper's Discount and you can get $100 off your vanity top order! We will send you $100 in a Cash-Back Check, Absolutely FREE."
  Include a salutation. Many e-mail letters work fine without a salutation – they're more like short ads. But if you want your letter to look like a letter, you'll need a salutation at the top or after a headline.
  You can make it generic (Dear Stone Professional, Dear Homeowner), but a personalized salutation is better whenever that's an option. Simply include the word "Dear" followed by a field for the first name or first and last name of the recipient.
  You can personalize your body text in the same way with names, places, locations, and various bits of information. Don't overdo it, though, or you'll raise privacy concerns.
  Include at least three Webpage links. Unless you're trying to sell something directly from your e-mail, you will be sending your reader to an HTML-based Webpage to complete the transaction. That means including a link that the reader can click on or cut and paste into a browser's address window.
  This link should appear at least three times: after the offer in your first paragraph, somewhere in the middle of the letter, and again at the end. Statistics claim 95 percent of click-throughs are from the first two links, which is why it's important to get them upfront as well as at the end.
  For newsletters, you can break your copy into several short items, each on a different subject with its own link. If you offer education seminars on stone care and maintenance, you can link to a PowerPoint presentation along with your message.
  Keep it short. Prevailing wisdom is that a prospect letter should be from 200 to 500 words and a newsletter from 500 to 1,500 words. In general, if you want to sell right from the letter, you need more copy. If you want people to go to another location, keep it short and say just enough to get the click-through to the Webpage.
  Don't look like a spammer. Keep your tone friendly and informative. Avoid overblown language. Keep the exclamation points to a minimum. Avoid lots of all-cap lines, which mean screaming in cyberspace.
  Opt-out Statement. The opt-out statement prevents flaming from recipients who feel they have been spammed. All they have to do is use their e-mail software’s reply function and type “unsubscribe” or “remove” in the subject line. You must honor all such requests. Following is an example of an opt-out statement:
  “We respect your online time and privacy and pledge not to abuse this medium. If you prefer not to receive further e-mails of this type from us, please reply to this e-mail and type ‘Remove’ in the subject.”
  Keep it online. Allow the entire transaction to take place on the Web. Don’t force prospects to call on the telephone or use mail, although you may want to give them the option. It is essential to accept credit cards on your website for true e-commerce.
 
TESTING
  Once you’ve selected your lists, created your message, and arranged all the back-end process (fulfillment, customer service, shipping, etc.), it is time to test.
  You may have found several lists that match your target market. Each list may have tens of thousands of addresses. Test your mailing on smaller samples such as a few thousand per list. Then study the response to see which lists generate the highest response rate.
  Code your tests to determine where each response is coming from. You can also test From lines, Subject lines, personalization, plain text vs. HTML, offers, length and the Webpage where you're directing people. Every little improvement translates into more revenue for each subsequent mailing.
 
ROLLOUT
  When you’ve identified responsive lists, workable offers and creative approaches, it’s time to roll out your campaign to a larger audience. Be sure to track the campaign and measure your response.
  To summarize the main points of an electronic direct-mail campaign:
  • Be clear about what you’re trying to achieve;
  • Have a clear, powerful offer;
  • If you have an offer and it isn’t pulling satisfactory response, create a more-exciting offer;
  • Lead with your biggest benefit or most-compelling offer;
  • Break up the text into short, easy-to-read sections;
  • Write in a personal one-to-one, natural style;
  • Test; and
  • Make it easy to respond
 
  Hasan Kursad Devecioglu is a direct-marketing consultant at Marvelous Marketing Consultants Company, which is a New York-based direct-marketing company. He is the author of the Marketing Imported Natural Stone Products in the U.S. Marketplace book. Kursad is also the president of Marvelous Marble Corp., natural-stone importing company. He was the speaker of the conference “7 Ways to profitable direct marketing in the U.S. stone industry” at MARBLE 2005 in Izmir, Turkey.
  He can be reached at kursadd@yahoo.com; to learn more about the author and his book, go to www.directmarketingturkiye.com.

This article first appeared in the June 2006 print edition of Stone Business. ©2006 Western Business Media Inc.