How many of us will be able to make that claim?

Well, the classic Claude Hopkins book Scientific Advertising is still a must-read.  It's a slim 56 pages, but blows just about every advertising book ever written out of the water.

No less than David Ogilvy said that everybody should read it seven times, and that it changed his life.

Good enough for you? Download an open-source PDF file here.  Read it at lunch.

Then go forth and do likewise.

photo credit: gds

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And sometimes I just shake my head. My apparently never-ending stream of poorly executed direct mail continues, with the latest effort being a shockingly bad example from Marriott's Fairfield Inn and Visa.  It appears to be the result of a co-op promotion, which may account for the execution; nobody at either Marriott or Visa felt they were responsible for the results of the effort, and it shows.

For the record, the family and I are fans of Fairfield Inns and signed up for Marriott's Rewards program as the result of numerous stays at their Hazelton, PA location.  The staff is always great, the rooms clean and cookies and DVD movies are always enthusiastically offered to us when we check in at 9 or 10 pm the Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving.

Now, if only those responsible for their direct response efforts could feel the same enthusiasm.  Rather than rant and rave, here's a PDF file of the quick analysis I've sent to Marriott's marketing team.

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My first post of 2008 comes as the result of a fairly normal activity that many of us--if we listen to the financial gurus and our financial advisors--undertake every year.  Namely, double-checking our financial records, investment portfolio allocations, life insurance and so forth.

During this year's analysis of my bank accounts, I found that a teaser rate from Wachovia bank had expired and the interest rate on one of my money market accounts had gone down from 4.75% to the standard rate of 1.75%.  As the result of a couple of phone calls and some quick online banking, Wachovia lost a large chunk of my business that they needn't have.

And they could have prevented it all by taking a lesson from Willams-Sonoma.

Salt, gold (investment grade) and the like are as close to pure commodities as you can get.  Banking services, thanks to the lack of creativity on the part of the major banks, aren't much less of a commodity than pure salt.  Money market accounts, for example, offer a given rate of interest for your deposit with a certain number of allowed transfers per month, linkage to other accounts at the bank, access via branch and ATM and online and--importantly--FDIC insurance to protect your investment.

If you take a look at money market accounts from the major banks, you'll find that they are more-or-less the same.  The rates will vary slightly, banking hours will be slightly different and the UI for the online banking portals will vary.  Otherwise, the deal is that you put your money in and, on a regular basis, your account is credited the proper interest per the agreement you have with the bank.

A few years ago, after the banks were deregulated and before the rise of online banking, Google and Web 2.0, the banks had a decided advantage in the business to consumer relationship.  Once you were secured as a customer, it was a lot easier for the bank to hold you.  After all, to decide to move your money to another bank, you'd have to go through a lot of phone calls or in-person visits.  Then, assuming you wanted to move your money, it was more in-person visits--usually at times that were very inconvenient to you--to take care of all the paperwork necessary to get a quarter- or half-point more in interest.

Now the playing field has been leveled.

Once I discovered that my teaser rate had gone down, I did a couple of quick searches.  It turns out that a number of banks such as HSBC, Commerce and a couple of local credit unions, have non-teaser rates in the 4.2 to 4.5% rates, all of which are much better than Wachovia's crummy 1.75%.  So, I rang up Wachovia and asked if they'd give me a better rate.

Wachovia had a golden opportunity to keep (not even win back, but just keep) my business on that phone call.  And instead of arming their customer service reps with powerful products and terrific offers, served up through benefit-oriented scripting, they instead armed them with popguns.

I was offered the opportunity to move my funds to a CD with a 5.05% interest rate.  But that product required me to lock up my funds for at least 5 months.  No thanks.  I offered the rep a chance to extend the introductory rate to keep my business and he wasn't able to do that.  When I asked him "got anything else", he said "no".

So I thanked him and within 3 minutes of hanging up, moved my money to an existing online account that currently pays well over 4.25%.

What does my banking story have to do with direct response marketing?

Plenty.  Let's look at salt.  It's just NaCl and you can buy it in various forms.  At Peapod, for example, you can get Giant brand salt for $0.42/lb, get fancy with Morton brand at $0.55/lb or splurge with Hain Pure Foods sea salt at $1.53/lb.  That's right, you can pay almost 3X for a product that's arguably less pure than the Giant or Morton's brands.

But that's nothing.  Check out Williams-Sonoma, who charges almost 44X the Giant brand for their sea salt. Now there's a marketer who understands how to decommoditize a product offering!

What did Williams-Sonoma do to be able to charge 44X more for salt than Giant?  It wasn't much.  Sure, there's the W-S stores in the malls, which are costly to staff, stock and operate.  But aside from the stores, the salt is packaged a little better.  There's a better story around the salt; after all, salt dried out by hand from the sea by a glamorous Frenchman beats the heck out of something blasted out of a mine in Pennsylvania by a sweaty miner.  Other than that, it's the same stuff.

The difference between Giant brand and Williams-Sonoma salt is in the 4 P's:

• Product.  Hand-dried in the sun vs. dug of the the dirty ground.
• Place. France vs. some hole in the ground.
• Promotion. Well written catalog story vs. unit cost tag on a low shelf.
• Price. Heavy premium vs. cheaper than the dirt it was dug out of.

So what could have Wachovia done to make me be at least OK with 1.75% interest?  How about:

• Product. Add a "free" financial plan for my family and myself?
• Place. Waive up to $20/month in foreign ATM fees for as long as I kept the money with them?
• Promotion. Offer double the FDIC insurance, provided by Lloyds of London at no charge to me?
• Price. Get the interest rate at least a little closer to the competition, provided some adjustments are made on Product, Place or Promotion.

That's just a few off-the-cuff ideas.  I'm sure that bankers know of hundreds of possible changes to the marketing mix to allow their products to be different from the muck of commodity product offerings and dramatically increase their profit margins.

Summary and takeaways

1. Don't sell commodity products.  If Williams-Sonoma can sell salt at 44X the going rate with a better package and an interesting story, you can turn your commodity into an exclusive product as well.
2. Give your customer service agents the ability to retain customers.  Know your customer LTV and give the reps wide leeway in doing as much as possible to retain your hard-won customers.  You'll also find that the reps will perform even better once they are confident they've got tools in the toolkit that actually work.
3. Continue developing new products.  Unless you've got a mile-wide barrier to entry around your product, you will be commoditized.  If you're not selling salt, you don't have to worry about the guy in the mine next door.

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Over the years I, and my clients have labored mightily at our marketing efforts. Hours of careful thought about our marketing objectives, followed by more hours of careful analysis of past test results. And even more analysis of our lists and target audiences, followed by hour upon hour of agonized copywriting and creative development. Lastly, double- and triple-checking test emails, lettershop insertion samples and testing our telemarketing scripts in every imaginable way.

After all that careful planning and analysis, what could possibly go wrong?

Just three simple things:

1. People don't read.
2. People don't think.
3. People don't care.

Those simple "people don't" mantras aren't meant to be as negative sounding as they first appear to be. In fact, they are actually very positive thoughts that will help you develop more relevant and, ultimately, more effective marketing. Let me explain:

People don't read.

This isn't to say that nobody reads any more or that your target audience is illiterate. Nor does it mean that long copy doesn't work. (Quite the contrary, as I am an advocate of long copy.)

It just means that they aren't going to read all of what you have to say. Most of the time they will skim or snack over your copy. The result is that they--through no fault of their own--are going to miss things. Important things like your offer or key benefits. And that will depress response.

Here's a test to get around this problem. Walk out your door (I mean out the door and to the street; talking to a fellow marketing person doesn't count) and stop the first person you see. Hand them your copy and ask them to read it. Count in your head to 10 and pull away the copy. Ask them three questions:

1. What's this for?
2. Why would somebody buy it?
3. What are they offering you?

If you can get pretty good answers, say with 80% accuracy, you're at a good start.

Not a fair test? Remember that when you go home tonight. The kids are screaming, the dogs are barking, the gas bill showed up and you've got to run out to hockey practice and, what about dinner? Think you've got time to read a lot of text to figure out how to spend your money?

People don't think.

People and your customers aren't dumb, of course. They're just strapped for time and they fall back on using heuristics (patterns) when they make decisions.

Unless it's something that is at top of mind or might get you killed, you tend to fall back into patterned ways of thinking. Such as doing what our mothers taught us years ago. That's why we buy Morton's salt, when the store-brand would be just as effective in delivering our daily NaCl.

Unfortunately, most of the time, they aren't thinking about your products or services. Sorry, they aren't waiting for your offer to hit them as they're surfing for news this morning. That banner ad just isn't going to get their attention.

You've got to get their attention with something a bit (and it doesn't have to be much) different that give the brain an opportunity to switch into conscious decision-making mode.

One of the best examples of this is AOL's use of varied designs, offers, packaging--including use of tins, boxes, plastic cases and so on. One of the objectives was to get your attention and make you think, even if just for a second. And that's what allowed that 10th or 20th disk to finally break through with a positive response.

People don't care.

Quick, what brand of shoelaces are you wearing? If you're like me, the last time you even thought about your shoelaces, let alone the brand, was probably never. I'm sure the good people who make our shoelaces are distraught over that, but then they care deeply about the business of making, marketing and distributing shoelaces.

The people you are selling your products to aren't worried about your problems, your marketing campaign or your company. You've got mere seconds to get them to care about a problem of theirs that happens to coincide with a solution you're providing.

Getting people to care starts with your choice of words and a simple test. And the test is "you". Is your copy absolutely dripping with "you" copy? Or is the "me/I" or, worse, the dreaded corporate "we" variety? If so, why should they care about you? Make me care about my favorite topic--me--and you've got a chance.

Summary and Takeaways

People don't read, people don't think and people don't care. Remember that before you embark on any marketing campaign and do the following to overcome those problems:

1. Get them to start reading by catching their attention quickly and simply.
2. Stimulate active thinking about your offer by changing things up. Try different formats, offers or unexpected channels.
3. Make your offer personal and feature "you" copy that offers benefits that solves their problems.

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