Direct Mail Tips
Blog Category
Why Nordstrom and J. Jill’s Direct Mail Mistake Cost Them Millions
A very unexpected article drew me out of my usual morning email-checking haze today. My supervisor Debora Haskel had forwarded me an “interesting read” from MindFire, highlighting a drop in sales for clothing retailer J. Jill. The headline read “Retailer J. Jill learned the Hard Way Why Direct Mail is Still Relevant,” and the smell of scandal perked me up more than the cup of coffee I was holding [...]
The Outer Envelope is Key to Getting Your Direct Mail Opened
Fair or not, your audience is always going to judge your direct mail by its outer envelope. Their three-second assessment of your outer envelope (part of the 3:33 rule of direct mail—a topic in itself) will make or break your mailing. If they’re not moved to open the envelope, you don’t get to talk to them [...]
Tips for Creating a Call-to-Action that Can’t Be Ignored
From time to time, in direct marketing writing and design, we need to focus on the fundamentals to help us stay sharp in conveying the purpose and value proposition of what we’re selling. Why? Because so many direct marketing packages fail to answer these basic questions: Do we give our audience a reason to open? […]
3 Times You Can Break the Grammar Rules in Your Marketing Copy
Grammar is nit-picky and tricky, and it’s constantly evolving with our culture and turning hard-and-fast rules into bendable guidelines. Yes, there are still rules, but they can be a bit obscure or not entirely enforced in colloquial speaking, so we can run into situations in which following proper grammar rules makes writing sound overly formal […]
The Power of Direct Marketing Copywriting, Tips, and Testing, Testing…
Quick, which offer will pull better: 50% off or Half Off? Should you offer something FREE or Complimentary? Buy One Get One Free or BOGO? If you answered “It depends” to the questions above, you’re right. That is why we test.
