3 Incredible Direct Mail Success Stories

Presented by

Gary Hennerberg

Direct Mail Consultant , Creative Director and Analyst

3-Part Presentation Overview

1. 7 sales pathways inside your customer’s mind

2. Aligning creative and production capabilities

3. Collaboration between production and creative to drive higher response

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Success Stories

• Collin Street Bakery – 60% response lift

• Assurity Life Insurance (Term offer) – 60% response lift

• Assurity Life Insurance (Guaranteed Issue offer) – 35% response lift

• Medical Arts Press – reduced selling cost with direct mail format change

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Collin Street Bakery

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Assurity Life Insurance: Term

Assurity Life Insurance: MBL

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Medical Arts Press

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4 Distinct Versions Of Each Component

Created For Each Of

4 Markets

• Medical • Dental • Chiropractic • Veterinary

Why Incredible Successes

• Repositioned product or configuration

• Color to get opened and read

• Tightly processed data

• Change to direct mail format

• Collaboration with production

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Part 1: 7 Sales Pathways that Deliver Incredible Success Stories

Getting inside our customer’s mind to successfully sell

7 Mind Groove Techniques

1. Identify the persona

2. Stimulate negative emotions (FUD)

3. Calm the mind

4. Uniquely position or reposition

5. Reinforce with storytelling

6. Interpret what this means

7. Affirm with permission to respond

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• Deeper than basic demographics or lifestyles

• Reveal the complex fabric

• Foundational

• Attributes: Demographic and Behavioral

• Profiles and models

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Mind Groove Technique #1:

Identify the Persona

• 10 Personas

• There can be more, especially for niche markets

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Mind Groove Technique #1:

Identify the Persona

• Yearns to be first

• Innovator

• Wants to be seen as ahead of the curve

• Makes them smug; feel important

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 1: Trailblazers/Early Adopters

• Brand/look at core

• Compliments swell the mind with joy

• Eternally young

• Will spend to brag about the experience

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 2: My Brand/My Lifestyle

• Value and pragmatism

• Practical and sensible

• Combines cost and value for decision

• Doesn’t need or want thrills or frills

• Wishes the world was more sensible

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 3: Money Matters

• If the right things aren’t supported, the world and our culture will spiral downward

• People aren’t doing their part

• The world is ending up a worse place than how it was given to us

• Fear is regretting that they didn’t do more to make the world a better place

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 4: Right Thing to Do

• They won’t be loved

• Their relationships could falter

• Being disliked, discredited or rejected

• “Street cred” will be diminished and social ranking negatively impacted

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 5: Love and Social Relationships

• Opportunists

• This individual feels the odds are stacked against him

• If an opportunity is missed, it may never come back again

• “No one has my back, so I have to make my mark on my own”

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 6: Adrenaline Seekers

• This individual fears making a decision that will cost dearly

• Confidence is low, uncertain and continually live in doubt

• Cautious and methodical

• Wants all of the information

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 7: Playing It Safe

• A compulsion will be exposed for all to see

• Guard will lapse and he or she will be vulnerable

• Must always be on alert and looking over the shoulder

• Wants to be someone else

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 8: Feeding My Compulsion

• More than a demographic — it’s a mindset

• Priorities have shifted

• New phase — new leash on life

• No turning back the clock

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 9: Fifty Plus

• Legacy is important

• Contribution to causes important

• Want their name to live on forever

• Fear is their relationships, work, their contributions to life and culture leave them feeling largely unimportant in the world

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Personas

Persona Type 10: Did I Matter?

• The amygdala, or “lizard brain,” has an evolutionary purpose

• Reacts to “fight” or “flight”

• Alerts to basic needs: anger, fear, reproduction

• Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt (FUD)

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Mind Groove Technique #2:

Stimulate Emotion

• Left Amygdala:

• Retains both pleasant and unpleasant emotions

• Right Amygdala:

• Retains negative emotions, especially fear and sadness

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Stimulate the Mind

The Amygdala

• Unpleasant: Fear / Uncertainty / Doubt

• Often successful in financial, health, and political campaigns.

• Pleasant:

• Often successful in categories like fundraising, travel, gifts.

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Mind Groove Technique #1: Stimulate the Mind

The Amygdala: Unpleasant / Pleasant

• Direct mail letter headline example:

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Mind Groove Technique #2:

Stimulate Emotion

• When stimulating the mind, don’t freeze the thinking

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Mind Groove Technique #2:

Stimulate Emotion

• After stimulating emotion, calm the mind

• Assure

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Mind Groove Technique #3:

Calm the Mind

• Direct mail letter example:

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Mind Groove Technique #3:

Calm the Mind

• Announce a new discovery

• Introduce a solution

• Assure with a promise

• Promise a reward

• Brighten the mood of the message to evoke pleasant memory

• Introduce new learning

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Mind Groove Technique #3: Calm the Mind

Ideas

• Direct the person to emotions that offer:

• Pleasure

• Reward

• Pleasant Memory

• New Learning

• Moderate the Mood

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Mind Groove Technique #3: Calm the Mind

Emotions

• Brain function: Hippocampus turns a new memory into long-term memory

• Unique Selling Proposition, or Unique Value Proposition, quickly positions your product and your organization

• New memory is highly desired

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Mind Groove Technique #4:

Position/Reposition

• Direct Mail Outer Envelope Example

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Mind Groove Technique #4:

Position/Reposition

• Story creates new perspective and new memory

• Creates a new groove in the brain

• Solidify the new memory with a compelling story well told

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Mind Groove Technique #5:

Storytelling

• Story is the most fundamental of proven selling techniques

• Magnetically pull the individual into your story

• Gets attention

• Stores in memory

• Enables easier retrieval

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Mind Groove Technique #5: Storytelling

Proven to Work

• From a direct mail letter:

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Mind Groove Technique #5: Storytelling

Example

• Direct mail brochure:

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Mind Groove Technique #5: Storytelling

Example

• Left brain: logical

• Mathematical calculations

• Features and benefits

• Calculates cost to value

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Mind Groove Technique #6:

Interpret the Outcome

• Skepticism must be overcome

• Interpret features to benefits

• Use and encourage testimonials or reviews

• Assure through a strong guarantee

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Mind Groove Technique #6:

Interpret the Outcome

• Direct mail certificate

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Mind Groove Technique #6: Interpret the Outcome

Example

• Right brain: emotional

• This is good

• This is smart for me

• I give myself permission to act/buy/contribute

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Mind Groove Technique #7:

Permission to Respond

• Direct Mail P.S. and P.P.S. Example:

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Mind Groove Technique #7:

Permission to Respond

7-Pathway Summary

1. Identify the persona

2. Stimulate emotion

3. Calm the mind

4. Position / reposition

5. Engage through story

6. Interpret

7. Permission to buy

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Part 2: Aligning Creative and Production for Incredible Success Stories

Getting the most out of your operation

Colors Stimulate Open Rates

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Colors and Emotions

• Blue: relaxing, calming, confidence,

success, reliability

• Green: environmental friendliness,

toughness, durability, masculinity

and sustainability

• Red: stimulation, expertise and self-

assurance

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Additional Colors and Emotions

• Purple: femininity, glamor and charm

• Pink: youth, imagination and fashion

• Yellow: fun and modernity

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Color Impact on the Brain

• The brain is most triggered by red, then green, then blue

• Red can make people's work more accurate; effective for recall

• Blue can make people more creative

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Outer Envelope Color

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Outer Envelope Blue Marbling

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Envelope Geo Personalization

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Colorful Photos using VDP

Part 3: Production and Creative Collaboration for Incredible Success Stories

Driving higher response when production influences creative

Collaboration #1: Printing

• Be proactive:

• Send paper samples and cost differences of each

• Notify creative of paper sizing for optimum printing cost efficiency

• Describe printing options

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Collaboration #2: Lettershop

• Most efficient envelope sizes

• Capabilities for envelope personalization and color

• VDP options may require a tutorial

• Die-cuts for windows

• Review sizes that work for you … and deliver most reasonable postage pricing

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Collaboration #3: Distribution

• Creative service providers need to understand postage costs

• Even if it doesn’t impact creative, explain commingling and co-mailing

• Trucking and other options

• Creative providers need to be informed so they can adapt if there is anything they can do to save on postage costs

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Incredible Success Creative Team Attributes

• Experience in direct mail copywriting, design, and print production efficiencies

• Helpful: direct mail “numbers side” analytic experience

• Collaborators with production sources

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Speak with a Pitney Bowes Direct Mail Solutions expert

to uncover ways to deliver higher impact direct mail at

lower costs.

Call 877.406.7704 to schedule an appointment or visit:

www.pb.com/directmailsolutions

Get started today!

Thank You!

• Contact Gary Hennerberg • gary@hennerberg.com

• http://hennerberg.com

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