Sharpe & Direct. The Direct Response and Email Marketing Newsletter

The easiest way to increase your direct mail response rates is to make your packages more personal. Given the choice between reading a flyer and reading a hand-written note from a friend, most people will read the personal note first. Here are some ways to make your direct mail packages more personal. (more…)

If you plan to make outrageous but true claims in your direct response copy, make sure you have a calculator nearby as you write. Because sceptical prospective customers and existing customers will check your numbers, even if you don’t. (more…)

Buy a filing cabinet. A big one. That’s my advice for aspiring direct mail copywriters, creative directors at direct mail agencies, and marketing managers who want to improve their direct mail results as quickly as possible. (more…)

If you want to improve your sales letters, read movie reviews. One of the most common criticisms brought against new movies is that the characters are wooden and one-dimensional. Their actions are predictable. Their speech is predictable. (more…)

How can you know if your direct mail sales letter is ready to mail? Check it against these guidelines from Don Kanter, the US direct mail specialist. (more…)

You can lose a direct mail sale quicker than you think.

So your primary goal at the start of your sales letter is to demonstrate relevance. You must prove, and quickly, that what you have to say is relevant to your reader. That’s why I recommend you write your copy as though it’s appearing on page one of a Google search results page. (more…)

Postcards are cheap to print and mail but they have one major weakness as far as direct response lead generation is concerned. They don’t have a physical response mechanism. (more…)

One of your toughest challenges in email marketing is persuading people to open and read your email sales pitch. Your customers are busy, and distracted, and inundated with spam. No wonder the average open rate is a mere 35.5 percent, according to email service provider Harte-Hanks Postfuture. (more…)

Your direct mail sales letters must overcome three doubts if you are to make money through the mail. (more…)

Will you read a sales letter 147 pages long?

Would you mail your customers a sales letter that makes them page through 124 case studies before you describe what you’re selling?

Will you read a sales letter that contains 56,938 words, enough to fill a 253-page paperback book? (more…)

Seven in ten consumers want you to personalize the direct mail you send them. Are you giving them what they want? (more…)

There are only two kinds of deadlines. Legitimate. And bogus. (more…)

When your direct mail sales letter is longer than one page, should you write “Over, please . . .” or “Please continue” at the bottom of the page? Of course not. (more…)

Direct mail fundraisers learned long ago that stamps boost response rates. Maybe the same will work for your sales letters. Why not test and find out? (more…)

Direct mail marketing rules are made to be broken, or so I’m told. So break this one and see what happens. (more…)

Call me a dunce, but I can’t write a single line of copy until I write my opening paragraph. (more…)

Want to improve your sales letters? Compare them with newspaper classified ads for salespeople. What employers look for in a salesperson, you should look for in a sales letter. (more…)

The most powerful headline I ever read and acted upon was a negative headline. It changed my life. (more…)

Lilly Tomlin, the American comic, once said: “When I was growing up, I wanted to be a somebody. Now I realize I should have been more specific.” (more…)

Do lift notes still lift response rates in business-to-business mailings? Yes, as long as they stand out.

(more…)

Aspiring copywriter, be warned.

(more…)

I am doing what you do, sitting at my computer, trying to get my thoughts out of my head and into a written form that will help you make a decision. In this particular case, I am trying to write a few intelligent remarks about sounding conversational on paper. You know, how to write a sales letter that sounds like it came from the mind of a person and not an institution. (more…)

Who do some sales letters put a smile on your face while others put a yawn in your throat? (more…)

If you want to increase revenue using direct mail, you have two options: sell more to the customers you have, or find new customers and sell to them. The tricky part is knowing how to do that. (more…)

If the most important part of any business-to-business direct mail package is the list, how can you be sure that you have a good list before you drop your money (and your reputation) in the mailbox? Answer: Ask the right questions before you rent that list. (more…)

I don’t relish being proven wrong. But a while back I sat down to discover who my best clients were. I wanted to increase my revenues. I figured that the best way to do that was to discover who my best clients were and to then go after more firms that were like them. (more…)

Here’s something to test.

Take your existing business-to-business direct mail
package and make just one change: put two
windows on the mailing envelope instead of one. Mail
it and see what happens. (more…)

The secret to success in business-to-business direct mail lead generation is testing. I have hunches. You have hunches. But testing settles the debate. When you test your package against my package and we measure the results, we know for certain which package performed better. (more…)

Is Direct Mail Useless for DMers?

Is direct mail useless at helping direct mail businesses
generate leads?

That’s the question I was asked last week by a
reader of Alan Sharpe’s B2B Direct Mail Tactics
newsletter. Here is her unusual challenge, and my
response. (more…)

How do you generate sales leads with B2B direct mail
when your product is not only new but also changes
the category? (more…)