Business to Business Direct Marketing :

title: Proven Direct Response Methods to

Generate More Leads and Sales
author: Bly, Robert W.
publisher: NTC Contemporary
isbn10 | asin: 0844232432
print isbn13: 9780844232430
ebook isbn13: 9780071392433
language: English
subject Industrial marketing.
publication date: 1998
lcc: HF5415.1263.B58 1998eb
ddc: 658.8/4
subject: Industrial marketing.
 Page i

Business to Business
Direct Marketing
Second Edition
Proven Direct Response Methods
to Generate More Leads and Sales
Robert W. Bly

NTC Business Books

NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group
 Page ii
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bly, Robert W.
Business to business direct marketing : proven direct response
methods to generate more leads and sales / Robert W. Bly. 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8442-3243-2
1. Industrial marketing. I. Title.
HF5415.1263.B58 1998
658.8´4dc21 97-29941
CIP
Interior design by Scott Rattray
Published by NTC Business Books
An imprint of NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company 4255 West
Touhy Avenue, Lincolnwood (Chicago), Illinois 60646-1975
U.S.A. Copyright © 1998 by NTC/Contemporary Publishing
Company All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior permission of NTC/Contemporary
Publishing Company. Printed in the United States of America
International Standard Book Number: 0-8442-3243-2
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
 Page iii

For my sons, Alex and Stephen

 Page v

CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgements xi
Part I
Fundamentals of Effective Business-to-Business Direct
Marketing
1 3
Strategic Differences Between Business-to-Business and
Consumer Marketing
2 25
Tactical Differences Between Business-to-Business and
Consumer Direct Marketing
3 51
Applying Direct Reponse Techniques to Business-to-
Business Marketing
4 99
Target Marketing
5 121
Soft Offers
6 147
Hard Offers
Part II
Business-to-Business Direct Marketing Tasks
7 171
Print Advertising
8 185
Direct Mail
9 209
Postcard Decks
 Page vi

10 217
Sales Brochures
11 231
Catalogs
12 247
Press Releases
13 261
Feature Articles
14 275
Newsletters
15 287
Speeches, Presentations, and Seminars
16 297
Business-to-Business Marketing on the World Wide Web
17 311
Electronic and Audiovisual Media
18 327
Telemarketing
19 353
Trade Shows
20 369
Inquiry Fulfillment
Appendix: Resources 389
Index 397
 Page vii

PREFACE
According to a recent cover story in Business Marketing magazine,
annual business-to-business direct marketing revenues are now
approaching $1 trillion. Target Marketing magazine reports that in
1995 business services generated nearly $78 billion in direct
marketing sales, and chemicals and allied products generated $26
billion in direct marketing sales.
In 1996 business-to-business marketers in the United States spent
$6.3 billion on direct marketing. Of this total, $1.3 billion was
spent by manufacturers promoting their products to business
customers, while service firms spent $1.1 billion on direct response
marketing. Other major users of business-to-business direct
marketing include wholesalers, financial services, communications,
transportation, utilities, construction, and mining.
Of the $6.3 billion spent on direct marketing annually, 60
percent$3.8 billionis spent on direct mail. The rest, according to
Business Marketing magazine, is spent on telemarketing, space
advertising, broadcast advertising, and other marketing
communications.
The Business Marketing Association recently surveyed its
members concerning their budgets. The results showed that half
have budgets of $1 million or more.
 Page viii
My, how things have changed! When I started my career in 1979,
"business to business" was known as "industrial marketing" and
"direct marketing" was called ''mail order." In those days,
management at firms selling business and industrial products
seemed content with advertising and PR programs that "built
image" or ''created awareness." More was not expected of
marketing communications.
But those days are gone and they'll never be back. Today more and
more marketers demand a tangible result from their advertisinga
qualified, measurable, direct response that can be converted into
salesthe kind of response that only direct marketing, not general
advertising, can produce.
This book is written to help you achieve those results. It recognizes
that business and consumer direct marketing are different in many
ways, shows you how to maximize the effectiveness of existing
business-to-business marketing efforts, and outlines how direct
marketing techniques, applied to traditional business-to-business
marketing communications, can make those communications many
times more powerful and effective.

Approach
Business to Business Direct Marketing is based on two simple but
powerful premises. First, that every marketing document or
activity, and not just ads or direct mail, should be a direct
marketing vehicle that "asks for the order" or at least for some
immediate, tangible response (and does not merely "communicate a
message").
The second premise is that, while there are some similarities, many
of the techniques and strategies of business-to-business marketing
are fundamentally different from consumer marketing; hence, the
need for a book that speaks directly to the special needs of the
business-to-business marketer.

How This Book is Organized

This book presents a collection of simple but highly effective
marketing techniques you can use to immediately achieve a
dramatic increase in the response rates of your current marketing
communications programs.
 Page ix
Part I examines the fundamentals of effective business-to-business
direct marketing including the key differences between business-to-
business and consumer marketing, how to apply direct response
techniques to business-to-business marketing communications,
target marketing strategies, and offers.
Part II shows how to make each type of business-to-business
marketing communication more effective and response oriented. It
covers print advertising, direct mail, postcard decks, brochures,
catalogs, publicity, newsletters, seminars, the Internet, electronic
and audiovisual media, telemarketing, inquiry fulfillment, and
more.
An Appendix lists helpful resources including publications, mailing
list sources, letter shops, graphic designers, printers, organizations,
conferences, and books.

Who Can Benefit from Using This Book?

This book is for you if you are a business-to-business marketer,
period, regardless of whether direct marketing is a primary
marketing communications tool for you, a secondary marketing
communications tool, or just something you've become interested
in and want to know more about.
If you're like most people reading this book, you probably work for
a business-to-business, high-tech, or industrial firm and are looking
to use direct marketing techniques to generate sales leads and
inquiries. You don't consider yourself in the "mail order" business,
as traditional direct marketers do. Rather, you see direct marketing
as an increasingly cost-effective, result-getting supplement or
alternative to conventional "image" and "awareness"
communications methods.
As consultant Donald Libey writes in his special report, The
Rebirth of Direct Marketing, "Today's relevant direct marketing
organization is not a direct marketing company in the classic sense
of the term; rather, it is an organization that employs direct
marketing techniques as a part of its totality of multiple channel
sales and marketing."
Some of you, however, are "mail order marketers" in that you sell
products directly to the business or professional buyer from your
mailings, catalogs, ads, or other promotions. I've designed the book
to include a wealth of response boosting tips and techniques
directly applicable to your needs, as well.
 Page x
I do have one favor to ask. If you've developed a business-to-
business marketing technique or strategy that's especially effective,
or recently created an ad or mailing that was a real winner, please
send it to me so I can share it with readers of the next edition of
this book. You will receive full credit, of course. Write or call:
BOB BLY
22 E. QUAKENBUSH AVENUE
DURMONT, NJ 07628
(201) 385-1220
FAX (201) 385-1138
 Page xi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I'm indebted to Donald Libey, Dr. Jeffrey Lant, Dr. Andrew Linick,
Ed McLean, Milt Pierce, Dave Kanegis, Ken Morris, Steve
Roberts, Wayne Roberts, Lee Roman, Bob Jurick, Steve Isaacs, Sig
Rosenblum, David Yale, Jerry Buchanan, John Friedberg, Harry
Moshier, Bob McCammoron, Ed Werz, Joan Harris, Mitch Hisiger,
Don Hauptman, Howard Shenson, Herman Holtz, Jeff Davidson,
Pete Silver, Ray Jutkins, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Dan Kennedy,
Dottie Walters, Russ von Hoelscher, Mark Nolan, Robert Serling,
Galen Stilson, Mike Pavlish, Richard Armstrong, Joe Barnes, Mark
Ford, Bill Bonner, Buddy Hayden, John Finn, and the other
authorities on direct marketing mentioned throughout this book.
I'm proud to call most of them friends as well as colleagues, and
their earlier efforts pointed the way.
Thanks also to my clients, some of the smartest businesspeople and
savviest marketers I've ever met. Working with them has given me
a priceless education on how to promote and sell business-to-
business products and services more effectively.
 Page xii
There are many other people I've come in contact with over the
years who have helped me refine the tested marketing methods
presented in this book. I won't name them all here. But they know
who they are. Thanks, folks!
Thanks also to Richard Hagle, Anne Knudsen, Karen Shaw, and
Julia Anderson, my editors at NTC/Contemporary Publishing
Company for having faith in me and in this book. And to my agent,
B. K. Nelson, for keeping me busy writing business books.
And of course, the greatest thanks to my wife, Amy Sprecher Bly,
my total partner in everything and the love of my life.
 Page 1

PART I
FUNDAMENTALS OF EFFECTIVE BUSINESS-
TO-BUSINESS DIRECT MARKETING
 Page 3

1
Strategic Differences between Business-to-Business
and Consumer Marketing
This book is written for the business-to-business marketerthe
company, agency, or individual who markets products and services
to business, professionals, and industry rather than to consumers.
The obvious first question that arises when discussing business-to-
business marketing is, "Is business-to-business really different from
consumer marketing, or are they much the same?"
If they are different, it makes sense for you to seek out books,
seminars, conferences, periodicals, consulting services, and
agencies, websites, and other information that deal specifically
with business-to-business as opposed to consumer marketing. On
the other hand, if they're much the same, you don't need specialized
information, specialized consultants, specialized ad agencies,
specialized seminars, specialized books, or any other resources
specializing in business-to-business marketing.
If there are no significant differences between consumer and
business marketing, you should be able to read books and articles
on consumer marketing, then apply what they teach you to solving
business-to-busi-
 Page 4
ness marketing problems. And a consumer ad agency or copywriter
should be able to do just as good a job on your business-to-business
ad campaign as an agency or writer specializing in business-to-
business.
Before we deal with this issue, however, we must first define
precisely what we mean by business-to-business, consumer, direct
marketing, and so on.
Business-to-Business Marketing Defined
Advertising refers to promotional messages paid for by a sponsor
(the advertiser) and carried in print or broadcast media. These
include newspaper ads, magazine ads, trade journal ads, Yellow
Pages ads, directory ads, radio commercials, TV commercials, and
billboards.
Business-to-business marketing is designed to sell products or
services to business, industry, or professionals rather than
consumers. Ads that appear in trade journals are a prime example
of business-to-business marketing. So are industrial catalogs.
People often think of business-to-business advertising as
"technical" advertising, but not all business-to-business products
are technical. A catalog selling paper clips, envelopes, and other
office supplies to business offices is business-to-business, but
hardly technical.
Consumer marketing is designed to sell products or services to
individual consumers, families, and households. Examples include
most of the TV commercials, radio commercials, and newspaper
ads you see, hear, and read every day. Victoria's Secret catalogs are
definitely consumer marketing, as are the sneaker commercials
featuring basketball stars.
Joe Lane, a specialist in business-to-business marketing, defines
consumer advertising as "simple thoughts for simple folks." But
that's an overstatement. While it's true that most consumer
advertising deals with simple productssoap, detergent, beer,
hamburgersnot all of it does. Brochures written to describe cars,
VCRs, PCs, and stereo systems, for example, often get quite technical

in their discussions of features and functions.

Direct mail is unsolicited advertising or promotional material (that
is, material the recipient has not requested) sent to an individual or
company through the mail. A four-page sales letter asking you to
subscribe
 Page 5
to Time or Newsweek is an example of direct mail. So is that big
package Publishers' Clearing House sends you every now and then.
Direct marketing is any type of marketing that seeks some sort of
reply from the reader, typically by phone, mail, E-mail, or fax.
Direct marketing print materials usually have response coupons or
reply cards the reader can use to request more information or order
the product.
Direct marketing TV and radio commercials typically use toll-free
numbers. Many encourage prospects to send an E-mail or visit a
website. Lester Wunderman, chairman of Wunderman, Ricotta &
Klein, a New York City ad agency, came up with the term direct
marketing in the 1960s.
Direct response and direct marketing mean the same thing. Direct
response seeks an immediate action on the part of the reader. This
could be to call a toll-free number, visit a showroom, try a product,
mail a reply card, go to a home page, or see a demonstration.
As you will see, one of the basic premises of this book is that
virtually all business-to-business marketing communications can be
made more powerful, effective, and profitable by converting them
from conventional communications to direct-response
communications.
Database marketing is a form of direct marketing in which you
repeatedly communicate with prospects whose names and other
information are contained in a database you own or rent.
High-tech advertising promotes software, computer hardware,
electronics, and other technology products. Most of it is aimed at
business buyers; some of it is designed to appeal to consumers. So
high-tech marketing is not necessarily business-to-business
marketing, although most high-tech advertising is probably
business-to-business.
General advertising, also known as image advertising, doesn't seek
an immediate response, but instead aims at building an image or
creating an awareness of a product, brand, or company over an
extended period of time.
Examples include TV commercials for consumer products such as
fast foods (McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King), soft drinks (Coke,
Pepsi), and packaged goods such as shampoos, soaps, dishwashing
liquids, and household cleaners. The institutional or corporate
advertising that appears in Forbes and Fortune is another example
of the genre. While targeted at business, it exists to promote a
corporate image, not generate orders for a specific product.
 Page 6
Industrial marketing refers to marketing used to advertise and
promote products and services aimed primarily at engineers and
other buyers working in traditional U.S. "smokestack" industries
such as chemical processing, pulp and paper, construction, mining,
food processing, oil and gas, water and wastewater treatment, and
so forth.
All industrial advertising is business-to-business advertising, but
there's a lot of business-to-business advertising that isn't industrial
(for example, firms promoting accounting, legal, and other
professional services are business-to-business but not industrial). In
1983, the leading trade magazine in the field of business-to-
business marketing changed its name from Industrial Marketing to
Business Marketing. Some people use the two terms
interchangeably, but this is inaccurate.
Junk mail is a popular term for direct mail and is often used in a
derogatory sense. Many professionals who work in direct
marketing consider the term a put-down of their industry and take
great offense whenever the words junk mail are used. In fact,
whenever a major media story on the direct mail industry refers to
direct mail as junk mail, numerous direct marketers protest by
writing letters-to-the-editors to both the offending newspaper and
the direct mail trade magazines.
Most people know and use this familiar term frequently. I suspect
most consumers don't have a clear idea of what direct marketing or
direct response isnor do they care.
Mail order is the selling of products through the mail. In mail-order
selling, the buyer typically purchases the product directly from an
ad, mailing, or catalog without visiting a store or seeing a
salesperson. The product is then shipped by mail or courier service;
again, with no middleman involved. Some marketers consider mail
order a dated term and prefer to call it direct marketing.
Marketing refers to the activities required to get a customer to give
you money in exchange for your product or service. Although
many people (including me) commit the language sin of using the
terms advertising and marketing interchangeably, they are not the
same. Marketing consists of four key components: product, price,
distribution, and promotion. Advertising is part of promotion.
(Other parts of promotion include trade shows, direct mail,
catalogs, sales brochures, the Internet, and publicity.)
 Page 7

Seven Key Differences between Business-to-Business Marketing

and Consumer Marketing
Are business-to-business and consumer marketing fundamentally
the same, or fundamentally different? There are two basic schools
of thought.
The first says, ''Business-to-business and consumer advertising are
fundamentally the same. After all, executives and engineers are
still human beings, and they don't stop being human when they step
into the office. So the basic consumer advertising techniques of
cleverness, humor, entertainment, color, good graphics, design, and
so forth will still appeal to them.''
People of this school think that all consumer advertising techniques
apply equally to business-to-business, that business-to-business
advertising shouldn't be handled any differently than consumer
advertising, and that the surest way to create an exciting, effective,
interest-grabbing business ad is to make it look and read like a
consumer ad.
If you're doing an industrial ad for widgets, for example, and want
to include some specifications, these people will likely object on
the basis that specifications are boring. What they do not realize, of
course, is that what bores them does not necessarily bore a design
engineer specifying widgets for a new plant.
The second school says, "Business-to-business marketing is
fundamentally different from consumer advertising. For
businesspeople, buying is a part of their job responsibility, and they
treat it very seriously. Also, as professionals, most businesspeople
are highly knowledgeable as buyers, and therefore simplistic (and
simpleminded) consumer appeals do not work. You must
communicate with business buyers using language that reflects
their level of sophistication and technical knowledge. Copy should
be factual and present sufficient detail about the product or service
to enable the business buyer to make an informed, intelligent
buying decision."
There is ample evidence to support this position. For example, a
survey published in Mainly Marketing, a newsletter covering the
high-tech marketing industry, showed that when creating ads for
technical
 Page 8
products, advertising agencies stressed features that buyers of such
products considered unimportant, and they also omitted
information that was vital. The ad agencies felt the high-tech ads
should always stress the benefit of how the product saved time and
money. But engineers and purchasing agents said product
specifications and limitations were more important to them.
What's my position on the topic of business versus consumer
advertising? I fall somewhere in the middle, but lean more toward
the school that says business and consumer advertising are
different. Having worked primarily in business-to-business
marketing since 1979, here is my conclusion: While there are some
similarities between business-to-business and consumer marketing,
the two are fundamentally different and require a different
approach.
Depending on which school you belong to, at this point you're
either nodding your head in agreement or vehemently rejecting my
premise. Let me identify what I consider to be the seven key
differences between business-to-business and consumer marketing.
You can then judge for yourself whether you agree with them.
Key Difference #1: The Business Buyer Wants to Buy
Most consumer marketing offers people products they might enjoy
but don't really need. These include luxury automobiles, wide-
screen and high-definition TVs, compact disc players, VCRs, $90
sneakers with built-in air pumps, designer fragrances, knockoffs of
designer fragrances, brand-name jeans, fast foods, single-malt
whiskey, and premium and gourmet ice creams in exotic flavors. If
we buy these items, we do so for pleasure, status, or enjoyment,
and not because they are essential to our day-to-day activity. For
example, you could easily survive without all the items on my list.
They are luxuries, not necessities.
As a result, powerful persuasion and massive advertising budgets
are needed to motivate consumers to buy these items. Consumers
are indeed being sold on something they don't really need and may
never have thought of acquiring before reading the ad or viewing
the commercial.
But in business-to-business marketing, the situation is different
because the business buyer wants toand has tobuy. Indeed, all
business enterprises must routinely buy products and services that
help them
 Page 9
stay profitable, competitive, and successful or that are needed for
the day-to-day operation of the business. The proof of this is the
existence of purchasing agents: employees whose sole function is
to purchase things on behalf of the company.
Not all business-to-business products are necessities. But in most
cases, the business buyer needs to acquire either your product, your
competitor's product, or some other type of product to address a
specific requirement or solve a particular problem. For example, if
you operate a business office and want the ability to send or receive
E-mail over the Internet, you must either buy my Internet access
service, my competitor's service, or subscribe to a public on-line
service such as CompuServe or America Online. But whatever you
do, you will have to spend money on an Internet or E-mail product
or service to solve your problem.
Even if you say, "I'm going to resist modern technology and not use
E-mail," you still need to buy a product or service to get messages,
letters, and other documents to your clients and customers quickly.
This might be an express-delivery service, messenger service, or a
flock of trained carrier pigeons. But the point is, you have to buy
something to satisfy the need for fast information delivery.
The microcomputer is another example. Consumers don't really
need personal computers, so it's a tough sell. Early computer ads
proclaimed the personal computer could do marvelous things such
as store all your recipes on a computer disk. But people were
perfectly happy storing their recipes the old-fashioned way on
index cards, so sales didn't boom.
Businesses, on the other hand, weren't interested in computers per
se (indeed, the thought of learning to use a personal computer has
terrified many a brave entrepreneur or executive), but
businesspeople definitely did want to get documents typed faster,
manipulate customer lists more efficiently, produce better-looking
reports and proposals, and automate inventory and accountingall of
which could be done with the personal computer. So, business
became the primary target market for the personal computer
because business buyers needed to find a better way to increase
office productivity.
What does all this mean to the business-to-business marketer?
Simply that it's often not necessary to resort to the far-out creative
approaches and entertainment-oriented techniques consumer
marketers use to engage the consumer's attention. Remember,
consumers aren't
 Page 10
looking to buy, but business prospects are. So the marketing
approach can be more direct.
If the business buyer is looking to solve a problem, you can often
create a successful ad or mailing just by identifying the problem in
your headline. Example: "How to Cut Hearing and Cooling Costs
by 50 Percent" was used to appeal to building owners who were
spending too much money to heat and cool their buildings. If
business buyers are looking for a specific product or service, you
can often get their attention just by identifying the product or
service in the headline. As one expert explains, "If I were writing
an ad for stokers and I could only have one word in the headline, I
would make it the word stokers in large, all caps, 72-point type!"
Wouldn't this gain your attention if you were in the market for a
stoker?
The bottom line of difference #1 is this: because business buyers
are looking to buy, business-to-business marketing can and should
be more direct and to the point. Don't be afraid to talk about your
product and what it can do for the buyers. That's what they want to
know more about.
Key Difference #2: The Business Buyer is Sophisticated
Business-to-business marketing is usually aimed at a fairly
sophisticated audience. With the growing illiteracy rate in America,
there's always a question when writing to consumers of how well
educated prospects are, how well they can read, or even whether
they can read at all. That's why consumer marketing strives to be
simplistic and frequently aims at the lowest common denominator.
However it's fairly safe to assume that the average middle manager,
engineer, systems analyst, or corporate executive has a college
degree or at least some higher education. Therefore, business-to-
business copy should be clear and concise but not overly simplistic
or basic.
Business buyers are often fairly sophisticated when it comes to the
product or service you are trying to sell them. They typically have
a high interest level in, and understanding of, the productor at least,
of the problem the product is designed to solve. In fact, a great
difficulty for those of us who create business-to-business
advertising is that our reader usually knows more about the product
and its use than we
 Page 11
ever will. This is a major difference between business-to-business
and consumer copywriting.
A copywriter working on a promotion for a record club doesn't
have to stretch her imagination far to get inside the mind of a target
prospect for this promotion because she probably is one. Most of
us, after all, have purchased records, read record club ads, and
thought about joining a record club at one time or another. On the
other hand, when I'm hired to write a brochure selling networking
equipment to telecommunications managers, I have to do a lot of
work to get inside the mind of my target prospect because I've
never been a telecommunications manager.
Most business-to-business marketers have not worked as doctors,
chemical engineers, lawyers, accountants, systems analysts, traffic
managers, or held any of the other positions of the people they are
writing to. Therefore, they don't have the same intimate knowledge
of the buyer's likes, dislikes, concerns, and prejudices that the
consumer copywriter usually has.
Business-to-business prospects typically have years of training and
experience in their field. Therefore, they often know much more
about the subject you're writing about than you do. That doesn't
mean they have superior knowledge about the specific product. But
they probably know a lot about that generic type of product, or at
least about the issues or problems it addresses.
For example, I may, at this point, know more about implantable
spinal bone growth stimulators than doctors reading my copy
because my client is the leader in this field. But I do not know
nearly as much about spine surgery as the orthopedic surgeons
reading my client's mailings. So I always have to work much
harder than the consumer copywriter to be accurate and not make
technical errors that would destroy the credibility of my copy. The
realization that our prospect probably knows more than we do
makes us business-to-business marketers a bit more humble than
our consumer counterparts.
Business prospects do not respond well to sloganeering or
oversimplification. We must communicate with them on a peer-to-
peer level to gain their trust, establish credibility, and prove that we
are knowledgeable enough about their situation to be of real help to
them. This means the business-to-business marketer must do a
tremendous amount of
 Page 12
research and digging into the market, the product, and its
application. Just writing an ad "off the top of your head" seldom
produces an effective promotion.
Key Difference #3: The Business Buyer Will Read or at Least Scan
Your CopyIf It Is Important, Relevant, and Engaging
The other day I was giving an in-house seminar in copywriting for
the staff of a company that produces conferences and seminars.
One of the students asked me, "Do business buyers read, or are
they like consumers in that they won't read a lot of copy and will
look only at the pictures and headlines?"
"It's really a paradox," I responded. "On the one hand, it's true that
business prospects are readers. For most executives, managers, and
professionals employed in the business world, a significant part of
their job consists of readingnot only reports, letters, memos, and E-
mail but also proposals, product literature, and other information
concerning products and services they need to acquire to perform
their job function. So the business buyer does read, in fact must
read, and is accustomed to readingsomething that isn't necessarily
true about all segments of the general public.
"On the other hand, today's business executive are tremendously
busymore time-pressured, with too much to read and not enough
time to read itthan ever before. So, although your message may
indeed be beneficial or useful, often they won't get to it simply
because there are too many things in their in-baskets competing for
their attention."
My seminar attendee then asked, "How does that affect copy
length, then? You've said one of the key differences between
business-to-business and consumer is that business readers will
read a lot of copy. But if they're pressed for time, shouldn't copy be
as concise as possible?" This question has a three-part answer.
First, yes, business-to-business copy should be as concise as
possible. But this doesn't mean copy should be short; rather, it
means copy should tell the complete story in the fewest possible
words. So being concise does not necessarily mean limiting the text
to a few superficial para-
 Page 13
graphs. It means getting to the point and not wasting the reader's
time by saying in three paragraphs what could be said in one
sentence.
Second, business readers will read a substantial amount of copy,
but only if it's interesting and relevant. The more interesting or
relevant, the more they'll read. If you send me a four-page letter on
managing my staff, I may not read it because I have only one
employee and management is not a critical issue in my business.
But if you send me a four-page letter on "How to Get Rich Selling
Books and Tapes by Mail," I'll read every word (if it's interesting,
useful, and well-written) because I'm fascinated by the topic.
Third, although business buyers will ultimately read many words in
the process of making a purchase decision, all of these words are
not necessarily contained in a single document. When selling a
piece of capital equipment, for example, you will have many
contacts with the prospect, most of which involve some written
marketing document such as an ad, brochure, proposal, or letter.
While each may be brief, in total they add up to many thousands of
words. So business buyers do read a lot of copy, but not necessarily
at one sitting.
As a result, we business-to-business marketers can't, like some of
our consumer counterparts, always adopt the attitude that "shorter
is better." You can sell a pair of jeans or a perfume with a slogan
and a sexy picture; this approach won't work with a programmable
controller. Therefore, a question we wrestle with when creating any
marketing communication is, "How long should the copy be? How
much information should I include?" I offer the following formula:
The copy should contain enough informationno more, no lessto
convince the greatest number of qualified prospects to take the next
step in the buying process.
The product, audience, and purpose of the promotion are the three
factors that ultimately determine this length.
First, consider the product. With some productssoftware, for
examplethere's an overwhelming amount of information that could
be conveyed. You could literally write a book about most software
products. (The proof is that many major PC software products in
fact have several books written about them!) So the challenge
becomes one of selectivity: How can we select the most essential
sales points to include in
 Page 14
our ad or brochure, and what can we safely leave out? With other
products and services, the opposite is true. A courier service, for
example, is so simple and well-understood that you're hard-pressed
to find enough things to say about it to create a meaningful,
interesting brochure. This makes it easier to be brief, but more
difficult to be interesting.
The second factor determining copy length is the audience:
different audiences have different levels of interest inand different
concerns aboutyour product or service. Let's take telephone
systems as an example. The telecommunications manager is
interested in the details of how your telephone system operates, so
a brochure aimed at this audience would contain a lot of technical
information and could run six to eight pages or longer. But let's say
you were selling the same telephone system to small business
owners, not corporate telecommunications managers. These
entrepreneurs have no technical background in
telecommunications. And they don't have the timeor the
inclinationto learn a lot about phone systems. Their main concerns
are features (Does it handle three-way calling and give them the
other functions they want?), benefits (How much money will it
save them?), performance (Will it provide quality, trouble-free
performance), and support (Is your company reputable, and will
you be there if they need service?). So a brochure aimed at them
will hit the high points and skip the details.
The third factor determining copy length is purpose. Let's say you
are writing a letter to promote a testing device costing $349. If your
letter is merely seeking an inquirythat is, you want the prospect to
mail a reply card to request a brochure, or to call and speak to a
salespersonyou don't have to go into complete detail about the
device; your brochure or salesperson can do that. You only have to
say enough about the device and its special advantages to get the
prospect interested in finding out more about it. So your copy can
be brief and leave the details to the follow-up presentation.
On the other hand, suppose you didn't have a sales force and
wanted your letter to generate mail orders for your $349 testing
meter. Now your mailing package must give complete details
because there is no follow-up from a sales force. Your mailing
must not only tell buyers about the benefits, specifications,
functions, and features, but it must also answer any questions or
objectives they have, as well as explain precisely how to order. So
the purpose of your promotion also affects copy length.
 Page 15
The key point? Business buyers will read copyif it's interesting,
relevant, and contributes to helping them make an informed
decision about taking the next step in the buying process.
Key Difference #4: Business Buying Is a Multistep Process
In most consumer direct response marketing, direct marketers are
geared toward producing the package: an elaborate mailing that
consists of a lengthy letter (usually four pages or longer),
illustrated brochure or circular, order form, reply envelope, and
additional elements such as a second letter, second brochure,
second order form, or flier.
Consumer marketers rely on this one selling piece to do the bulk of
their selling when it comes to getting people to subscribe to their
magazine, buy their insurance policy, or purchase their mail-order
product. The package is continually mailed, tested, refined, and
modified. Copywriters are hired to create new test packages to mail
and measure against the existing package. The package that wins
the test becomes the control package and is mailed in mass
quantities to as many lists as is profitable.
But for many business-to-business direct marketers, the concept of
package or control is not that relevant. Why? Because, while the
purchase of most consumer products is a one-step product, the
purchase of most business products is a multistep process.
A vice president of operations, for example, doesn't clip a coupon
from a trade journal ad and order a $750,000 air pollution control
system by mail. Could you imagine the response coupon for such
an ad?
 Yes, I'm interested in controlling pollution in my chemical plant.
&2751 Please send me an XP-800 Wet Scrubbing System. Our check
for $750,000 is enclosed.
I understand that if for any reasonor for no reasonthe XP-800 is not
for us, I may return the pollution control system, and you will refund
our money in full. . . .
This example is absurd, but it illustrates the point: Most business-
to-business direct marketing seeks to generate a lead, not a direct
sale. The purchase of a business product or service typically takes
many
 Page 16
steps, not a single stepunless the product or service is inexpensive
($300 or less).
Consider the chemical plant manager reading an ad for a pollution
control system. First the manager asks for a brochure. Then a
proposal. Only upon acceptance of a satisfactory proposal is the
contract awarded. As a rule, the more expensive the product or
service, the more steps in the buying process. Therefore, it is not a
single piece of copy that wins the sale. Rather, it takes a series of
letters, brochures, presentations, ads, and mailerssupporting the
efforts of salespeopleto turn a prospect into a paying customer.
John Friedberg, of New York City advertising agency Friedberg
Feder, says every customer must go through a logical sequence of
steps in order to decide on a purchase. He identifies these steps as
awareness, need, credibility, evaluation, conviction, and
maintenance, which he defines as reassuring customers they made
the right choice after they make the purchase. Copywriter Luthor
Brock, writing in The Direct Response Specialist (March 1996),
identifies three stages of selling: educating prospects (making them
aware that your product exists and educating them on what it does),
familiarizing them with your product (filling in any gaps in their
product knowledge), and showing how your product is superior to
the competition's.
In his 1978 classic book, Business/Industrial Marketing and
Communications: Key to More Productive Selling (out of print),
George C. McNutt defined these steps in the business-to-business
sales sequence:
1. Contact all who directly or indirectly control buying.
2. Arouse interest in the type of product or service the company has
to offer.
3. Create a preference for the company's brand or service.
4. Make a specific proposal to the prospect regarding the
company's product.
5. Close the order in spite of the competition.
6. Keep the customer sold on the company's product.
"It is apparent that communications media can be potent tools to
use in steps 1, 2, 3, and 6," says McNutt. "This permits person-to-
person selling to be concentrated on steps 4 and 5."
 Page 17
More recently, Stan Rapp and Tom Collins, in their book The New
Maximarketing (McGraw-Hill), break the direct marketing selling
process into five steps: activation (getting prospects to make an
inquiry); information (fulfilling the inquiry); persuasion (designing
the inquiry fulfillment materials so they convince prospects the
product is right for them); propulsion (giving prospects an
incentive to take action now instead of later); and completion
(getting the order).
Unlike the consumer direct mail writer, who puts every selling
argument into a one-shot package that has to do the entire job
getting the consumer to subscribe to a magazine or buy porcelain
dolls by mail, the business-to-business marketer often has to plan a
series of contacts with the potential customer. When writing a
direct mail package for a client, for example, I have to keep in
mind what we will send to prospects who respond. And, for
greatest effectiveness, these two items (the lead-generating piece
and the fulfillment package) should be planned and written as a
series rather than separately. We'll explore strategies for creating a
maximum response lead-generating and fulfillment series later in
the book.
Key Difference #5: Business Buying Involves Multiple Influences
You don't usually consult with a team of experts when you want to
buy a fast-food hamburger, soda, bottle of shampoo, bag of potato
chips, or other low-cost consumer products. In most consumer
selling situations, the purchase decision is made by an individual.
Most consumer purchases are impulse buys. That is, the consumer
sees a commercial, wants the product, and buys it. Or, the
consumer sees the product in a retail outlet, remembers it favorably
from the commercials, and buys it. There's not a great deal of
agonizing over the decision; it's basically an impulse. Exceptions?
Certainly. Some consumer products require a more carefully
thought-out purchase decision. These include a car, home, life
insurance, fine china, silverware, vacation home, health insurance
plan, television, stereo, and furniture. But most low-priced
consumer products are impulse purchases.
Most business-to-business buying involves what is called a
considered purchase, meaning the buyer carefully considers the
product, the
 Page 18
competition, and the price before making a buying decision. In
most business organizations, any given executive or manager has a
predefined limit of how much money he or she can spend without
authorization or approval from a supervisor or someone else higher
up in the organization. Therefore, most purchase decisions above
small amounts are made by committee, not by individuals. People
involved in the purchase decision typically perform one of three
functions: recommend, specify, or buy. When you fill out a reader
service card in a trade magazine requesting advertisers to send you
information on their products, the card usually asks if you
recommend, specify, or buy products, to help qualify you as a lead
for the advertisers.
Recommend means either to initiate the inquiry process or to advise
others to approve the purchase. The controller at a small firm, for
example, might see an ad for a new computerized accounting
system, get excited about the product, send for literature, and try to
convince the boss to buy it.
Specify means to make sure the product meets all requirements
before purchase and to work with the vendor to ensure the product
is successfully implemented after purchase. At the small firm
mentioned above, the controller might recommend purchase of the
software, but it's the chief computer operator or head of the
information systems (IS) department who is responsible for making
sure the software is compatible with the existing computer system
and also for getting it installed and running on that system.
Buy means to authorize the purchase of the product or service. At a
small firm, the owner, president, or general manager is the person
who has the authority to purchase the new computer software. The
controller and the head of IS probably don't have the authority to
say to you, ''OK, it's a deal,'' even though they may act as if they
do.
Direct marketing consultant Ray Jutkins says three types of people
are involved with business buying decisions: the user of the
product or service; the influencer, who is usually someone higher
up than the user; and the decision maker, usually an upper-middle
or upper management person.
Other buying influences that may be involved, according to
Jutkins, include: the buyer, a purchasing agent, financial officer, or
other person
 Page 19
from whom you actually get the purchase order; the initiator, who
pushes for acquisition of the system or product; and the gatekeeper,
usually an executive secretary or administrative assistant who
protects the other buying influences you want to reach.
As a result of all this, we see that selling to business successfully
may require reaching all the purchasing influences within a
companynot just one or two. This often involves targeting different
messages about the product or service to different audiences with
different concerns.
Going back to our example: The controller is most concerned with
how the software can simplify accounting procedures and wants to
know in detail what accounting methods the software employs and
how the numbers are treated.
The head of the computer department doesn't know or care about
how the books are kept. The head of the computer department
wants to know about the product from a software point of view.
What hardware platforms does it run on? How much computer
resources does it consume? What's the cost? How easy is it to
install and test?
Business owners or managers are probably too busy to worry much
about the technical details of either the accounting or the
computing aspects (although if they are financially oriented, they
may be interested in some of the details of the accounting system).
Their primary concern might be the reputation and stability of the
software vendor. They ask the controller and computer chief: "How
do we know that this company will be around five years from now
to support the software system we invest in today? What happens
to our computing systems if your company goes out of business
and this accounting software becomes obsolete and unsupported?"
If your marketing literature hasn't provided the answers, they may
put a stop to the purchasing of your software even though you
thought the sale was "in the bag."
To sum up: to be successful, business-to-business marketing
communications must address the needs of all parties involved with
the purchase decision. In some cases, this requires separate
mailings and brochures targeted to many different people within an
organization.
Actually, while you almost always would benefit from separate
mailings, brochures, and marketing documents aimed at each
buying influence, this isn't always practical or affordable. What to
do?
 Page 20
One solution in direct mail is to create versions of the base package
aimed at different buying influences. For example, you could create
a basic packagesales letter, brochure, and reply cardselling widgets
to plant managers. From that, you could do different versions
aimed at different buying influences: one to the purchasing agent, a
second to the design engineer, a third to the chief financial officer.
The brochure and reply card would be the same in each version.
Only the letter would be different. This allows you to create
tailored versions of your package with minimal extra cost.
The same approach could be used when doing a mailing on one
product to different industries. You could have one cover letter
aimed at pulp and paper plants, a second at the food processing
industry, and a third at widget buyers in the electronics industry.
Again, the expensive color brochure and reply card remain the
same; only the letter varies.
A second solution to addressing multiple buying influences in a
single promotion is a technique Steve Isaacs of the Stenrich Group
calls compartmentalization: On one page of your brochure, you
have a section listing the benefits of the product as they apply to
each of the different buying influences. This might be a box with
the headline: "Benefits of the XYZ System." Underneath the headline
is a series of subheads identifying the various buying influences or
markets (e.g., "For plant managers . . . ," "For process engineers . . .
," "For purchasing agents . . . ," ''For distribution managers. . . .").
Under each subhead is a series of bullets (three to five is about the
right number) listing the benefits of greatest interest to that
particular buying influence. Some bullet points might apply to only
one of the groups. Others might appear under multiple
subheadings. It doesn't matter, as long as the readers looking under
the subhead that describes their position or job function see, at a
glance, all of their most pressing concerns, needs, or wishes
addressed.
The key to effective selling is to position your product or service as
filling a need or want of the buyer. This is more difficult in
business-to-business than consumer marketing because we often
have to reach multiple buying influences with a single piece, and
therefore sometimes cannot speak as directly as we would like to
the hopes, fears, concerns, and questions of each individual
prospect. These two techniquestailored versions and
compartmentalizationcan help overcome that problem to some
degree.
 Page 21
Key Difference #6: Business Products Are More Complex
Most business productsand their selection, usage, and
applicationsare more complex than consumer products. For
example, clients I have served include a commercial bank, a
manufacturer of elevator control systems, a data processing
training firm, a database marketing company, a mailing list broker,
and a semiconductor manufacturer.
Business-to-business marketing communications cannot be
superficial. Clarity is essential. You cannot sell by fooling the
prospect or hidding the identity of your product as is done, for
example, in the get-rich-quick school of print ads found in
opportunity seeker magazines. Half the battle is explaining, quickly
and simply, what your product is, what it does, and why the reader
should be interested in it. "In business-to-business direct mail, the
key is to educate the prospect," says Mark Toner, advertising
manager for Amano, a manufacturer of computerized time-clock
systems. "With a product like ours, most customers don't even
know of its existence."
I am not saying that the name and description of the product should
necessarily be in the lead of the letter or the headline of the ad. In
fact, it's usually better to start by addressing a need or concern of
the prospect, then show how your product or service meets that
need. Effective business-to-business marketing communications
must move swiftly from the problem to how your product resolves
the problem. If you take too long to get to the point, or deliberately
confuse or mislead your readers, you'll lose themfast.
I've observed that many direct response ads and direct mail
packages for consumer products are successful because they make
more of the product than it really is. This is necessary, I suppose,
because there is so little substance to some of these products that,
without embellishment and "hype" copy to create excitement, they
wouldn't sell.
But for many business-to-business products, the opposite is true.
The products are already exceedingly complex and difficult to
understand. The marketer's job is to simplify, not puff up, the
product description. To be sold on the product, your readers first
must understand what the product is, how it works, and what it will
do for them. This is inherently difficult, given the complexity of
the product. Your job is to explain itconvincingly, understandably,
and quickly. You must be clear.
 Page 22
You must be direct. You must get right to the point. You must make
sure readers understand why your product is so great, and why their
organizations simply must have it.
Key Difference #7: Business Buyers Buy for Their Companyand for
Themselves
This is the most overlooked aspect of business-to-business
marketing communications. Most advertisers stress the benefits of
what the product will do for the reader's company, assuming this is
the reader's only concern. But it's not. Readers are also concerned
with how the purchase decision affects them personally. And when
corporate and personal buying motives conflict, the personal
motives frequently win out. If you want to sell businesspeople
something that's good for their companies but bad for them, they'll
probably find a way to sabotage your efforts and convince their
bosses not to buy it. I can think of hundreds of examples of this.
Let me give you a recent one.
A close friend owns a small but well-respected ad agency here in
New Jersey. Recently, she had the chance to pitch a new high-tech
account. The person who called her had responded to a sales letter
she had sent to about fifty such firms. His title was Senior Writer.
She visited his company. He started talking about graphics and
desktop publishing and asking what software she used and what
fonts she would recommend.
"Wait a minute," she said politely. "While we are happy to do
graphics, we are not a design studio. We are an advertising agency.
That means we do the whole advertising campaignfrom planning
and strategy through copywriting and design." The prospect
immediately became distant and cold. ''I do all the planning and
writing around here," he explained haughtily. "I just need someone
to lay out my words. And I already know marketing, so your help
is not needed there."
She thanked the prospect for his time, ended the meeting, and left.
Later, we reviewed his writing and agreed he was a terrible writer,
with no understanding of selling or marketing. So why did he not
retain this ad agency? The reason is that the service threatened his
ego. He perceived himself as the great writer and saw the ad
agency as competition, not help. Although his company's business
goal was to produce more effective marketing communications,
this prospect's personal goal was to do all the writing
himselfresulting in a conflict that motivated
 Page 23
him to turn away any outside marketing service that offered advice,
knowledge, or writing assistance.
The lesson here is that to motivate business buyers, you must
present benefits that appeal on both the organizational and the
personal level. You already know the key business benefits: to save
time, to save money, to make money, to increase efficiency, to
boost productivity, to make the business grow. But what are the
personal motivations prospects respond to and that should be
stressed in business-to-business copy? Here are a few of the most
basic appeals:
Security. Concern for making the safe, acceptable decision is a
primary motivation of business buyers. Business buyers often will
buy something that involves the least risk or least chance of turning
out to be a wrong decision, even if it is not the best product.
In information systems, for example, there's an old saying,
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." This means that if you buy
a new brand or computing device that offers more power at lower
cost, but the company goes out of business or there is some other
problem, you'll be blamed by management for buying from an
unknown vendor. But if you have a problem with an IBM computer
system, no one will criticize you because IBM is recognized as a
good company: If something's wrong, it must be IBM's fault, not
yours.
A corporate pension fund manager, writing in Money magazine,
noted that no money manager ever got fired for losing money
invested in a blue-chip stock. A different example, but the principle
is the same.
Avoiding Stress or Hardship. Avoiding unnecessary headaches or
work is a big concern among business buyers. Most of us do not
want to get involved in things that make us work harder than we
already are, even if the company would benefit in the long run.
For instance, a consultant might offer a new system for increasing
productivity. But the system involves changing from the current
record-keeping system to a new method. Switching from the old to
the new system will save most workers time in the long run. But
making the switch would involve a lot of extra work for Mr.
Scithers, the head of record-keeping.
If Mr. Scithers has anything to say about it and thinks no one will
criticize him for it, he will work to sway his company against
engaging the consultant and implementing the new system, even
though current procedures are not efficient. Mr. Scithers feels he is
already too busy
 Page 24
and doesn't need this extra headache, despite the fact that it would
probably help clear up some of his existing paperwork backlog.
Fear of the Unknown. Fear is an extremely powerful motivator that
can either work for you or against you. A middle manager, for
example, might vote against acquiring desktop publishing and
putting a terminal on every manager's desk because he himself has
computer-phobia. Even though he recognizes the benefits such
technology can bring to his department, he wants to avoid the pain
of learning something he perceives to be difficult and frightening.
Again, personal concern outweighs corporate benefit in this
situation.
Fear of Loss. A traffic manager in a company that has handled its
shipping and distribution in-house for the past decade may resist
her president's suggestion that they retain a third-party service
provider and outsource some of the company's growing distribution
and logistics needs. Even if she respects the third-party logistics
firm and believes it could do a good job, the traffic manager may
campaign against them, fearing that bringing in a third-party
service provider will diminish her own status within the company
and may even result in the eventual loss of her job.
In these and many other instances, business buyers are buying for
themselves first and for their companies second. To be successful,
your business-to-business marketing communications must not
only promise the benefits your prospects desire for their company,
copy should speak to the prospect's personal agenda as well.
Getting Help Doing Their Job. You know that corporate
downsizing has left fewer managers to do the work. As a result,
your customers are especially interested in buying products and
services that save time, reduce effort, minimize paperwork, ease
administrative burden, and otherwise make their life easier and
require a minimum amount of their personal time and involvement.
According to an article in Marketing Tools magazine, a survey
conducted by Penton Publishing reveals that 92 percent of business
buyers say they have more work to do today than they did five
years ago. As a result, suppliers who are willing to work more
closely with end users, and even take over work that had previously
been done in-house, gain an edge. This trend is reflected in sellers
and buyers working together to make the relationship more
mutually beneficial. Marketers address this buyer need by featuring
their support and service capabilities, often packaging them as
programs in which the supplier "partners" with the buyer.
 Page 25

2
Tactical Differences between Business-to-Business
and Consumer Direct Marketing
In Chapter 1, we discussed seven key differences between
business-to-business and consumer marketing that apply to all
forms of marketing communicationsdirect as well as general. These
differences are fundamental and affect your entire approach to the
creation of business-to-business marketing communications
programs.
In this chapter, we'll explore a number of mechanical differences
between business-to-business and consumer marketing that apply
only to direct marketing.
As you'll see, most of these differences stem from the fact that
business-to-business marketers sell to smaller, narrower vertical
markets than the typical consumer marketer, and are therefore
mailing in far smaller quantities. This creates a set of unique
challenges and difficulties business-to-business direct marketers
must face in list selection, testing, creative fees, production, and
many other areasproblems that consumer direct marketers are not
burdened with. In this chapter, we'll discuss these special
challenges of business-to-business direct marketing and
suggestions on how to cope.
 Page 26

Business-to-Business Versus Direct Marketing: The Volume

Difference
One critical difference between business-to-business and consumer
marketing is the size of the audience. In space advertising, this
means that business-to-business ads are placed in specialty
magazines with limited circulations, whereas consumer advertising
is published in newspapers and magazines with hundreds of
thousands or even millions of readers.
In direct mail, this means mailings typically of only a few thousand
pieces for most business-to-business campaigns versus tens of
thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions for consumer
direct mail. (I was once hired by a business-to-business client to
write a sales letter to a market of 187 prospects. A publisher of
consumer newsletters, by comparison, has mailed more than
350,000 copies of a direct mail package I wrote for him a couple of
years ago.)
In the production of sales literature, business product brochures
usually have print runs from 1,000 to 5,000. Some consumer
catalogs are printed in press runs of hundreds of thousands. While
this doesn't affect the content of your marketing communications as
directly as the seven key differences described in Chapter 1, it does
affect your budget and your approach to the business of marketing
to business and industry. There are some big benefits to having a
smaller, more specialized audience. There are also some major
drawbacks. Let's explore them.
Mailing Lists
If you've been in direct marketing for any length of time, you know
the list industry is geared toward serving the needs of large-volume
mailers. The more names you rent, the more money the list brokers,
owners, and managers make. The more money they make from
you, the more attention you get. Conversely, direct marketers who
mail in small volume will not get a lot of time and attention from
the list professionalseven though they may need it most.
Many experienced business-to-business marketers who get into
direct mail for the first time are shocked when I explain that the
reason they're not getting a lot of service from their list broker is
that the rental of 5,000 nameswhich seems an incredible quantity to
the mailerrepresents an insignificant order to the broker. As one
major list broker once confided
 Page 27
to me, "My primary customer is the large consumer magazine or
mail order marketer who is going to mail in the millions. I'm also
interested in consumer marketers who will mail in the hundreds of
thousands. Smaller accounts are not worth cultivating." For this
reason, business-to-business marketers mailing only a few
thousand pieces a few times a year will not get a lot of attention
and help from most list brokers.
Business-to-business list rentals are difficult for the broker to make
much money on, not only because the volumes mailed are smaller,
but also because the lists are more specialized. Your ideal list may
turn out to be the 3,200 members of some arcane professional
society that doesn't even make its list available on a regular basis.
It's simply not worth the broker's time to research, track down,
make a deal with, and rent the list for you from the list owner. So
most won't bother.
One other simple fact demonstrates that the list industry is not
geared toward serving the business-to-business marketer: the
minimum order quantity on most list rentals is 5,000 names, but
many business-to-business direct marketers are targeting only a
few thousand or a few hundred prospects. To rent 5,000 names
each from five to eight listsa typical test quantity for consumer
mailingsgenerates numbers beyond belief for the average business
marketer.
The solution is to find a broker that specializes in business-to-
business lists. Several are listed in the appendix of this book. Tell
the broker your needs and ask for help in finding the right lists for
you. Don't, however, be incredibly demanding. Remember that in
brokers' minds, your request is marginally worthwhile as opposed
to their orders for large-volume mailers. So expect good service,
but be a pleasant, easy-to-get-along-with client. Don't expect list
brokers to jump through hoops for a mailing of 5,000 pieces. If the
broker reaches a dead end and seems reluctant to do more, consider
hiring a direct marketing consultant to do the list research for you
on a paid basis.
What is the difference between a broker and a consultant?
Traditionally, a broker receives a commission (paid by the list
owner, not the list renter) per thousand names rented. The service
aspect of being a list broker, which is to research and recommend
the right lists to the direct marketer, is usually provided without
charge. The broker does not receive money unless names are
actually rented, and there is no charge for providing list
recommendations (although some brokers are experimenting with
such fees).
 Page 28
The consultant, on the other hand, is paid a straight project or
hourly rate for doing list research. Therefore, you, as the paying
client, have a right to demand as much service as you want. While
brokers resist spending hours researching a small list requirement
because of lack of compensation, consultants will happily do this
work because they are paid for the time and earn money for
consulting services, not list rentals.
Another reason for engaging a direct marketing consultant is that
sometimes the ideal business-to-business list may be a trade show
attendee list, professional society membership list, or other highly
specialized list not generally available on the commercial markets
and for that reason not listed in any of the standard list directories
or catalogs. Often these lists are available in limited formats, such
as gummed labels only or as a printed directory only, and list
brokers don't want to deal with them. A consultant, however, will
gladly get such lists for you.
A good example is a client of mine who wanted to mail to business
managers at group radiology practices. The list brokers could not
find any list on the market. On his own, the client discovered there
was a professional group of 1,200 radiology business managers.
The group didn't rent their list to brokers, only to members and
associate members. My client, a vendor, joined as an associate
member, got the list, and did a successful mailing. For 1,200
names, a broker wouldn't have bothered with it.
None of this is meant as a criticism of list brokers. On the contrary,
my purpose is to educate you, the business-to-business direct
marketer, a little bit about brokers and how they earn their money.
A good business relationship must be mutually profitable. Too
often business-to-business direct marketers with small, specialized
list needs complain about a broker who ignored them or gave them
bad treatment. What often happens is that the marketer wants
attention and service disproportionate to the meager profits the
broker will make servicing the account.
Be realistic about what you expect brokers to do based on your
volume of business with them. And don't make false promises
about ''lots more business" later down the line. The broker isn't
fooled. Please realize that even if you gave your broker all your
business for this year and next year, it probably wouldn't add up to
the profit for handling list rentals for just one test mailing for any
major consumer magazine or catalog marketer.
 Page 29
Testing
Testing as it is meant in the traditional sense for the "classic" direct
marketer (selling via mail order) is often meaningless for the
business-to-business marketer. Yet some level of testing can and
should be done.
Classic testing in direct marketing is as follows: Say you are
offering magazine subscriptions. Your list broker identifies eight
lists that might work for your offer. Each list is about 200,000
names, for a total universe of 1.6 million. Yet you don't know if all
the lists will work. Some will. Some won't.
So you test. You mail 5,000 names per list, for a total test of 40,000
pieces. Let's say lists A and D pay off. You then roll out, which
means you mail more names on those lists that tested successfully.
But you don't mail to all 200,000 names on list A or D. Instead,
you roll out to no more than ten times the quantity of the test. That
means you roll out to 50,000 names maximum from a test of 5,000.
If the mailing of 50,000 is successful, then you can roll out to up to
500,000 names on that list.
The reason such classic testing is not done in business-to-business
is that typical quantities are so small. Let's say you have a business
list that contains 6,000 names, and a second list of 8,000 names.
There's no point in testing 5,000 of each just to see which list is
best. The rollout would be only an additional 1,000 names on the
first list, and an additional 3,000 on the second. In this case, I'd just
mail my piece to the total universe of 14,000. I would, however,
key code my mailings so I could identify which replies came from
the first list and which from the second. For example, reply cards
used in the mailing pieces going to list A are addressed to Dept. A,
so if a Dept. A card comes back, you know the lead is from list A.
If one list pulled all the replies and the other got none, obviously
we'd use only the list that worked for future mailings. So this
limited kind of testing still has its place in business-to-business.
Let's consider another situation. You want to reach people in a
specialized profession. You find that the only list available is a
directory published by its trade association, and it contains 7,500
names. If there's only one list, you can't test this list against others
to see which is the best list. If you mail a letter to this list and it
doesn't get a good response, you really don't know whether it's the
list that is bad, or whether your letter missed the mark. Telephone
follow-up to a few
 Page 30
dozen people on the list who received your letter would be the best
way to find out what went wrong.
On the other hand, if there were three lists to choose from, each
containing 7,500 names, you could mail your letter to 2,000 or
5,000 or 7,500 names from each list, making sure to key code the
reply cards so you know from which list each reply came. If the
letter got good sales results on list A, but no response from list B or
C, then you know that lists B and Cnot the letterare at fault. Or,
perhaps the three lists are not as similar as you thought, and a
custom version of the letter should be tailored to lists B and C.
A frequently asked question is, "How many names must I test to
get a statistically valid result?" The experts do not agree. One well-
known list expert insists on 5,000 names. It's interesting that this is
the same minimum quantity most list owners and brokers want to
rent to you, isn't it? I think the 5,000 name figure for minimum test
quantity became standard because of the list industry's 5,000-name
minimum order, not because of statistical validity. Ed McLean, a
leading direct mail authority, wrote the definitive monograph on
direct mail testing, The Basics of Testing (now out of print). Figure
2.1, a statistical table used to determine the proper size of direct
mail tests, is reprinted directly from his monograph.
 Page 31
A key point is that the statistical validity of a test is determined not
based on number of pieces mailed but on number of replies
received. Figure 2.1 shows the statistical validity of a direct mail
test based on number of replies received (shown in the boxes
within the table). The table lets you determine the degree of
statistical validity you want from a test mailing, then tells you how
many responses you must get from your test to ensure that the test
results will be repeated in the rollout.
Two factors to consider are decline percentage (horizontal line at
the top of the chart) and degree of confidence (vertical line at the
left of the chart). Decline percentage tells you the maximum
amount by which the rollout results will vary from the test results.
Let's say you select a 25 percent decline. That means if you get a 1
percent response from the test, the rollout will vary from this by
plus or minus 25 percent. So you can expect the rollout to generate
anywhere from 0.75 percent to 1.25 percent, based on a test result
of 1 percent.
Degree of confidence tells you how certain you can be of staying
within the decline percentage you specify. If you select an 85
percent degree of confidence and a 25 percent decline percentage,
you are saying, "I want there to be an 85 percent chance that my
rollout will stay within plus or minus 25 percent of the response
rate generated by my test."
Now go back to Figure 2.1. Read down the vertical column under
"25 percent decline" and across from the horizontal row "85
percent confidence level." You see that you need fourteen
responses to get this level of statistical validity from your test. If
you anticipate a 1 percent response, you need to mail 1,400 pieces
per list in your test (1 percent of 1,400 is 14). To be on the safe
side, I'd make it an even 2,000. When people ask me, ''How many
pieces do I need to mail to get a statistically valid test result?" my
recommendation is 2,000 per list, based on the above analysis.
Is this accurate? The above formula was introduced to me not by
Ed McLean (who is now a friend and valued colleague) but by a
large mailing list brokerage that has been involved in thousands of
mailings. "We have been using this formula for more than thirty
years, and we find over and over that you can get a statistically
valid test result mailing 2,000 names, not 5,000," says the president
of this firm. I have since used it numerous times with clients doing
smaller mailings, and have found it to be valid.
 Page 32
Universe
The term universe refers to the total size of the market, not the size
of any particular list. If there are 1,200 radiology practice business
managers, the size of this market is 1,200. Most business-to-
business direct marketers are dealing with markets significantly
smaller than their consumer counterparts. But this is not always
true. A company like Quill, for example, that sells office supplies
via a mail-order catalog, has a potential universe of literally
millions of business customers. On the other hand, a manufacturer
that sells glass-lined reactor vessels for acid plants may target only
a few hundred prospects worldwide.
The size of the universe frequently dictates which marketing
approach is primary. For instance, if you have a product that
appeals to chemical engineers, you might advertise in Chemical
Engineering and other trade journals that are read by the majority
of chemical engineers. On the other hand, if your product only
appeals to those chemical engineers that work at Fortune 500
companies, you might have a computer extract the names of all
Chemical Engineering subscribers that work at Fortune 500 firms
and do a mailing just to that segment of the subscriber base.
Running an ad in Chemical Engineering would be wasteful
because it would reach thousands of engineers who are not Fortune
500 employees.
Now shrink the universe even smaller. One chemical company I
recently consulted with made a chemical that would be of interest
to only 50 to 100 companies manufacturing a certain type of
automobile part. With an audience this small, it's not cost-effective
to advertise in automotive magazines or to spend the money
creating elaborate mailing packages. The best approach might be
telemarketing or simply to have sales representatives personally
visit the 50 or 100 prospects.
Single-Shot Versus Series
As discussed earlier, consumer direct mail tends to focus on the
package: a single mailing piece that is mailed over and over to
many different list to generate direct orders for the product. The
existing packagethe one that currently pulls the highest responseis
the control. The consumer direct marketer's main marketing
strategy is to create a variety of different packages to test against
the control. If a test
 Page 33
package beats the controlthat is, pulls a greater responseit becomes
the new control and is mailed in vast quantities.
In business-to-business direct marketing aimed at limited
audiences, the marketer tends to use a series of marketing
communications rather than a single test package or control. Why?
A control package for a consumer product like Newsweek
magazine can be mailed to millions of names. But if you're mailing
to radiology business managers, there are only 1,200 of them. How
often can you mail the same thing over and over again before all
the prospects who are going to respond have, and the package
generates no further response? When that happens, you have to
create a new mailing or find a different promotion to reach these
prospects and get more of them to respond.
How many mailings should you send to a given group of
prospects? Dr. Jeffrey Lant, author of Money Making Marketing
(JLA Publications), recommends seven marketing contacts spread
over an eighteen-month period. Your mailing schedule may be
different. As a rule of thumb, you keep mailing to the audience for
as long as it is profitable. Measure the sales from each mailing. As
long as the mailings are breaking even or making profit, continue.
Stop when it is clear the next mailing would not make money.
According to an article in Target Marketing, a large Midwestern
insurance agency ran a five-year study of its policyholders to see
whether repeat mailings paid. The results showed that repeat
mailings increased customer retention. Normally, 42 percent of its
new policyholders retained coverage. But when the agency sent
four mailings to these policyholders during the year, the retention
rate increased to 84 percent.
The size of the market, combined with the number of leads or
amount of business you can handle, determines whether you can
get away with having a single package or control mailing or
whether you have to keep coming up with new mailings and
promotional ideas to elicit sales from your universe.
Let's say you create a letter that generates a 5 percent response.
You have a limited number of salespeople and, therefore, can only
handle twenty inquiries a month. Based on a 5 percent response
rate, in order to get twenty inquiries you would have to mail 400
sales letters per month. Say your universe for this product is 40,000
prospect names available on lists you can rent. Mailing these
names at the rate of 400 per month, it
 Page 34
would take more than eight years for you to exhaust the list!
Therefore, if your ad agency or copywriter comes up with a letter
that can generate a 5 percent inquiry rate, you need only this one
letter, not a series.
Does this mean you don't test other letters? No. Why not? Because
a higher response rate is always possible and translates directly into
lower marketing costs. If your ad agency or copywriter can come
up with a letter that pulls a 10 percent response, you only have to
mail half as many letters, which cuts your costs in half.
On the other hand, suppose you have a market of 2,000 prospects,
whose names are published in an annual directory you buy each
year. You create a letter and mail it to the list and get a decent
response. Then you mail the letter again and get a smaller response.
On the third mailing, there is not enough response to justify the
cost of mailing the letter. At this point, the letter has exhausted
itself on this list.
The solution? Come up with a series of letters or mailing packages.
When the first letter in the series is exhausted, you use the second
letter; the fresh approach helps lift response and gets you more
inquiries from this limited universe.
People frequently ask, ''What will happen if I mail the same letter
or direct mail package to the same audience?" My experience is
that, with a decent interval between mailingsfour to eight weeks is
idealthe second mailing will pull between 40 and 60 percent of the
response of the first mailing. Therefore, if the first mailing
generated a 4 percent response rate, the second mailing of the same
piece will pull about 2 percent.
How do you determine whether to mail the same piece a second
time? Well, would the mailing still be profitable if it pulls only half
the response rate it originally did? If so, then it makes sense to mail
the piece a second time before going to the effort and expense of
creating a new mailing. This formula has been proven in repeated
tests. As I write this, a client whose letter pulled a 5 percent
response rate called and told me his company got a 3 percent
response rate (60 percent of the original) on the second mailing.
List Duplication (Merge/Purge)
Another concern business-to-business mailers have is duplication
of lists. People frequently ask, "If we rent a subscriber list from a
maga-
 Page 35
zine and a trade show attendee list from a trade show in that same
industry, won't there be a lot of duplication between the lists? And
isn't this bad? And what do we do about it?" The answer is: yes,
there will probably be a lot of duplication. Is this bad? It's not
terrible, but obviously there's some waste. And what can you do
about it? Not much, if you mail small quantities.
As you're probably aware, through a service called merge/purge,
duplicate names can be eliminated from multiple lists, preventing
individuals who are on multiple lists from receiving more than one
mailing piece. The problem is that this service costs money. Often
the cost of a merge/purge service outweighs the cost of just mailing
out the duplicate packages. How do you know when merge/purge is
worthwhile? According to consultant Art Yates, it is not worth
spending money on merge/purge for mailings of 30,000 pieces or
lessand it's marginal for mailings of less than 50,000. The best
advice is to talk with your letter shop or list broker about whether
merge/purge makes sense. Another problem: some business lists
are not on computer disk, making merge/purge of these lists
impractical.

Space Commissions
Traditionally, ad agencies made their money based on a 15 percent
commission they received when placing ads in the media for their
clients. For instance, if you wanted to place an ad in Magazine X
and the cost for a full page was $10,000, the magazine would
charge you $10,000 for the space. If an ad agency placed the ad for
you, the magazine would give it an agency discount of 15 percent.
Therefore, the ad agency would get the $10,000 ad for $8,500. The
$1,500 discount represents the agency's commission, or profit.
This made consumer advertising profitable for ad agencies and also
made business-to-business advertising less profitable. For example,
a full-page ad in a major national consumer magazine might cost
$20,000. So the agency receives $3,000 every time it runs the ad.
By comparison, a full-page ad in an industry trade journal might
cost $3,000, giving the agency only a $450 commission for placing
the ad. Yet it theoretically takes no more time to place the $20,000
ad than it does the $3,000 ad,
 Page 36
making the consumer account much more profitable for the ad
agency. (I say "theoretically" because, in reality, consumer media
buying can be more complicated and time-consuming than
business-to-business media buying.)
Therefore, many business-to-business ad agencies find the 15
percent commission method of earning income either inadequate or
archaic and have other ways of charging. Alexander Marketing, a
Grand Rapids, Michigan, business-to-business ad agency, does not
accept media commissions, choosing to return these commissions
directly to the client. Instead, the agency simply bills for all its time
spent on the account at rates predetermined by contract with each
client.
Business-to-business media also recognize that the 15 percent
commission structure is antiquated. Many business publications
give the 15 percent discount to you whether you're a traditional ad
agency, an in-house ad agency for a manufacturer, or even if you're
not an ad agency at all.

Creative Fees
Although creative fees are not always smaller for business-to-
business direct marketing than consumer marketing, often they are.
This is because in a limited quantity business-to-business mailing,
it's difficult to justify a high creative fee. Often, in analyzing the
return on investment of a consumer mailing, the advertiser takes
into account only the recurring costs of doing the mailing. These
costs include printing, letter shop (putting together the pieces of the
mailing and preparing it for the post office), postage, and list
rentals.
What would these costs be? For an 11-by-17-inch self-mailer
printed in two colors and folded to form a four-page brochure, the
cost per thousand in 1997 was about $500 when mailed third-class
bulk rate in quantities of 20,000 to 30,000. For a "standard" direct
mail package consisting of a one- or two-page letter, folded
booklet, and reply card in a #10 business envelope, the cost can
easily run $600 to $700 per thousand.
Now, let's say you are doing a test mailing for a consumer product.
The test quantity is 60,000 pieces. If you pay a freelance creative
team (copywriter and artist) $10,000 to create the package ($5,000
for copy and $5,000 for design, type, and mechanicals), their fee
represents an added cost (versus doing it yourself) of less than 17
cents per mailing.
 Page 37
If the mailing is rolled out and eventually a million packages are
mailed, your creative costs spread out over all those mailings come
to about a penny per mailing. Therefore, to justify spending a lot of
money on the creative package, you can say, "We're reaching each
prospect with a professional sales pitch for only an additional
penny per prospect." That's an easy sell, isn't it?
With small-volume business-to-business mailings, it's the opposite.
I recently saw a beautiful, elaborate four-color dimensional mailing
that was mailed to only 200 prospects in a specialized industry. I
estimated the client had spent about $10,000 to write, design, print,
and mail these packages. That comes to $50 per prospect (the
equivalent of a cost-per-thousand of $50,000!). If the company gets
a 10 percent response, the mailing will have generated twenty leads
at a cost per lead of $500. These figures seem steep, and I'd gulp
hard before quoting them to a potential client. On the other hand, if
even one sale brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
business, as the client had hoped, the mailing would then pay for
itself many times over.
Because the cost of creating the mailing is spread over a smaller
number of prospects, business-to-business marketers are frequently
more budget-conscious than their consumer counterparts when it
comes to paying for creative services (copy, art, layout,
photography, illustration). One way to justify the investment in
such services is to design parts of the package so it can be used in
more than one application. Many of my clients, for example, do
mailings in #10 envelopes that consist of both a sales letter and a
small folded brochure. To justify the cost, they do a larger print run
of the brochure and use the extra brochures as leave behinds, trade
show literature, and for a variety of other purposes.
What do creative services cost today? That's difficult to answer
because fees range all over. Here are some typical fees for
business-to-business direct response copywriting services:

1- to 2-page lead-generating sales letter $850$1,750

4-page letter to generate mail-order $2,000$3,000
sales
Postcard for direct response postcard $500$1,000
deck
Self-mailer, 8 1/2-by-11-inch, folded $850$2,000
twice to form six panels
 Page 38

Self-mailer, 11-by-17-inch, folded to $1,500$2,500

form four, 8 1/2-by-11-inch pages (a
typical size for seminar or conference
mailers)
Direct mail package, lead generating $2,000$4,500+
(consists of #10 outer envelope, 1- to 2-
page sales letter, brochure, and simple
reply card)
Direct mail package, mail order (consists
of a #10 or 6-by-9-inch outer envelope,
3- to 4-page sales letter, brochure, order
form, business reply envelope, and
possibly one or two small additional
inserts, such as a buck slip):
For a small-volume mailing for a $2,500$6,000
specialized product
For a large-volume mailing to a mass $3,000$8,000
audience
Direct response print ad, lead generation, $950$2,000
full page
Direct response print ad, mail order, full $1,000$3,000
page

As a copywriter, I feel less comfortable quoting artists' fees, but I

have recently received quotes as follows. These prices include
comps (layout sketches), design, mechanicals, and typography.
Photography or illustration would be additional. (Often when doing
a direct mail package, I like to save money by reusing illustrations
or photos created for other promotions, such as the client's catalog
or product brochure.)

Postcard for direct response postcard $150$600

deck
Self-mailer, 8 1/2-by-11-inch, folded $1,000$1,750
twice to form six panels
Self-mailer, 11-by-17-inch, folded to $1,500$2,500
form four 8 1/2-by-11-inch pages (a
typical size for seminar or conference
mailers)
Direct mail package, lead generating $2,000$3,000+
(consists of #10 outer envelope, 1- to
2-page sales letter, 8 1/2-by-11-inch
brochure, folded to fit envelope, and
reply card)
The above package, without the $750$1,500
brochure (letter and reply card only)
 Page 39

Direct mail package, mail order $2,000$6,000

(consists of a #10 or 6-by-9-inch outer
envelope, 3- to 4- page sales letter,
brochure, order form, business reply
envelope, and possibly one or two small
additional inserts, such as a buck slip)
Direct response print ad, lead $700$2,000
generation, black and white, full page

Business Reply Mail

Another question frequently asked is, "Do I need to use a business
reply permit on my reply card or reply envelope, or can I ask the
recipient to affix postage?" In consumer direct mail, paying the
postage by supplying a business reply envelope usually lifts
response. If you are doing consumer direct mail, you should use a
business reply envelope, unless your profit margin is so small that
you can't afford it. (I have a small mail-order book business where
such is the case with one of our product lines.)
In business-to-business direct mail, a business reply card or
business reply envelope is desirable but not necessary. It's desirable
because it's convenient for the prospect and conveys a professional
image. If you're a small operation, for example, using a business
reply card or envelope makes you look larger, more professional.
At the same time, it's not a necessity. Why not? In consumer direct
mail, the logic behind using business reply envelopes is that you'll
lose orders or inquiries if you don't use themand force the
consumer to hunt for a stamp. But in most businesses, prospects
give their outgoing mail to a secretary or assistant who runs it
through the office postage meter. So the concern about not getting
the replies back for lack of a stamp is not relevant. If you don't use
a business reply permit, simply place a box in the upper right
corner of the address side of the reply card or envelope with copy
reading "Place stamp here."
Some people ask, "Wouldn't it be better to place stamps for the
prospects on all my reply cards or envelopes?" No. It would be
wasteful, and it wouldn't pay off. If you place a 32-cent stamp on
10,000 reply envelopes and, based on a 2 percent response rate,
9,800 are not returned, that represents $3,136 worth of stamps
thrown in the trash. Better to
 Page 40
use business reply mail, where you only pay the postage (plus an
additional per envelope service fee) for each envelope returned. Or
just use "Place stamp here."
I've not personally been involved in a test of "Place stamp here"
versus using a business reply card or envelope. In my direct mail
seminars, several attendees have told me they tested this in
business-to-business mailings in quantities of 10,000 or so with no
noticeable difference in response. So you are safe with either
option. But for the professional image it conveys, I recommend the
slight additional expense of a business reply permit.
First Class Versus Third Class
Most large-volume consumer direct mail packages are sent third-
class bulk rate. In fact, this is the preferred postage choice for most
direct mail. Yet, in more and more situations, I recommend that
clients use first class instead despite the higher cost.
Consumer direct marketers will continue to use the less costly
third-class bulk mail rate. This is a necessity in consumer mail-
order selling, where the profit margins per thousand pieces are low.
In such mailings, even a small additional cost per thousand can
convert the mailer from a profit maker to a money loser. To put it
simply, the marketer selling magazine subscriptions, term life
insurance, or other low-cost products via mail order simply cannot
afford first-class mail.
On the other hand, Gary Halbert, a direct marketing expert, says
that he has had success in consumer mailings using first-class mail.
Others also say that if you can afford it, first class is better than
third class. Why? Because third-class bulk rate is the standard
choice for most direct mail, a third-class bulk rate mailing indicia
printed on the outer envelope automatically alerts the consumer
that your envelope contains "junk mail." If you are using third-
class, use a postage meter or precanceled third-class stamp instead
of an indicia, if possible.
In business-to-business direct mail, use of third-class bulk rate is an
even more serious problem for three reasons. First, a certain
percentage of third-class bulk rate direct mail is never delivered to
the addressee. Postal employees dump it or simply never bother to
deliver it. One study
 Page 41
said the non-delivery rate for third-class bulk rate mail was 11
percent. This means one out of every ten of your packages never
even gets to the address on the mailing label.
Second, articles in the Wall Street Journal and other business
publications report that the mail rooms of many large corporations
routinely throw away mail they perceive as advertising mail rather
than personal correspondence. So one reason for your low response
rate is that the mail rooms are throwing away your third-class
mailings.
Third, even when the post office and mail room deliver the mail to
your prospect's office, secretaries screen the mail and throw away
items they think are junk mail or unimportant. One study by Ogilvy
and Mather showed that about half of executives and managers in
business have their secretaries screen their mail for them. So of the
mail that does get delivered, half may be discarded by the
secretary.
In combination, these factors result in an overall low delivery rate
for third-class bulk rate mail. According to an article in The Russ
con Hoelscher Direct Response Profit Report newsletter, ''A recent
study by the Direct Marketing Association showed that over 30
percent of the bulk rate ad mail mailed to business addresses never
reaches the person it was intended for."
Mailing first class solves a lot of these problems. First-class mail
has a much lower nondelivery rate than third class; practically all
first-class mail gets delivered. First-class mail is not thrown away
by the mail room. And using first class helps convince the secretary
that your communication is professional, not promotional. So in
much business-to-business mailing, we frequently use first class
instead of third.
Of course, a major factor that determines whether you mail first or
third class for your business-to-business mailings is cost. In 1997,
mailing a one-ounce #10 envelope package first class cost 32 cents
per piece, or $320 per thousand. Mailing the same package third-
class bulk rate (with no carrier presort or other discounts) cost 19.8
cents per package, or $198 per thousand. Therefore, you are paying
an extra $122 per thousand for the privilege of mailing first class.
If you are mailing to 500 OEMS (original equipment manufacturers)
in the automobile industry, you'd probably agree the extra $61 in
postage isn't a big consideration and that you should go first class
for the faster
 Page 42
delivery and greater impact. On the other hand, if you're a small
business mailing 40,000 pieces per month, using third class instead
of first class saves you $58,560 per year.
How long does it take for your third-class bulk rate mail to reach
the prospect once your letter shop brings it to the post office? Jerry
Lake, owner of Jerry Lake Mailing Services, a letter shop in
Newark, New Jersey, says two and a half weeks is average. First-
class mail is generally delivered within two to five days.
However, these figures are for delivery from your post office to the
recipient's door. In a large corporation, you have to add a couple of
days for the package to get from the mail room (if it is delivered at
all) to your prospect's in-basket. Give the prospect a day or two to
read it and respond. Wait another day for the reply card to get from
the prospect's desk to the mail room. Then wait a week for the
reply card to get back to you via business reply mail.
On a third-class bulk rate mailing, this can mean you may not get
your initial replies until two to four weeks after you mail them. So
don't panic when weeks go by and you don't get any response. You
have to be patient. On a first-class mailing, you will probably get
some replies within a week or so, and the bulk of your replies
within four weeks.
Screening
Another significant difference between business-to-business and
consumer direct mail is the secretarial screening, as mentioned
earlier. Since about half of all business executives have their
secretaries screen their mail, business-to-business mailers feel an
extra pressure (that consumer mailers do not) to find some way to
get mail past a secretary to the recipient.
Is this necessary? It depends on who the prospects are and where
they work. My experience is that the larger the prospects' company
and the higher up on the corporate ladder the prospects are, the
more likely they are to have an assistant screen their mail.
Therefore, when mailing to top level executives at Fortune 1000
companies, consider who will be screening the mail and how your
package will be perceived by this screener. Does it look important
or like junk mail?
 Page 43
When mailing to lower-level employees, it's less important to
worry about this aspect of the mailing's appearance. With
downsizing the trend in corporate America today, many middle-
level managers and professionals either share a secretary or don't
have one and open their own mail. Therefore, you don't have to
design your package to get past the "gatekeeper." The same is true
when mailing to small businesses. In a company with just a few
employees, the mail is usually distributed to everyone without
being screened. So you don't have to worry about getting past a
gatekeeper.
Exceptions? Of course. I think nurses or other assistants in doctors'
offices routinely screen mail (this opinion is based on first-hand
observation). One day, as I was paying for a dental exam, I
watched my dentist's receptionist sort through the mail. As she
piled some for delivery to the dentist, and round-filed other pieces,
I asked her how she made those decisions. Her simple reply: "If it
looks important, I give it to him. If it doesn't, I throw it away."
So a key strategy to getting your business-to-business direct mail
past the secretary or receptionist is to make it "look important."
This could be accomplished in one of several ways: through use of
an elegant or expensive paper stock; through personalization of the
outer envelope; or sometimes, simply by the nature of the subject
matter.
This means if your product is important to the reader, the screener
may pass on to the boss mailings that contain information about
such products. If the product is not inherently vital to your
prospect, your outer envelope copy should address a problem or
need important to the recipient and not talk about the product itself.
Another strategy for getting direct mail past the secretary is to
disguise your mailing so it looks like ordinary business
correspondence, not promotion material. To accomplish this, do the
following:
Mail in your regular #10 business envelope.
Mail first class.
Use a stamp or meter (not an indicia).
Type the recipient's name and address directly on the outer
envelope using a typewriter, word processor, laser, impact, or ink
jet system.
 Page 44

Formulas for Estimating Response

There are a variety of formulas for estimating total response to a
direct mail package based on initial returns received after a certain
number of weeks. This period is counted starting with the day you
receive your first replynot from the day you send out your mailing.
Russ von Hoelscher, a mail-order consultant, says that for a direct
mail package, you will get about half your total orders or inquiries
within eighteen days after you receive your first reply when you
mail bulk rate; six days when you mail first class. This day is called
doubling day because you have received half your response and
can therefore double that figure to estimate total response. For
example, if you mailed 5,000 pieces and have 25 replies by
doubling day, multiply by two. You can expect a total of fifty
inquiries, for a 1 percent response. While doubling day forecasts
don't always hold true, it's a somewhat accurate indicator.
However, I'm more comfortable telling clients that by four weeks
after the initial response, they've probably received 40 to 60
percent of the replies they are going to get.
Another interesting phenomenon that occurs in business-to-
business, especially with lead-generating direct mail, is that
inquiries may continue to dribble in for many months after the bulk
of them are received. This is especially true if your mailing
contained a brochure, folder, or even a letter that was so interesting
or valuable that prospects found it worth keeping. In my own
copywriting and consulting business, I have received telephone
calls and reply cards up to one year or more after sending out the
mailing! And often these ''late callers" are people who do not reply
to mailings unless they have a real, immediate need. They kept
your mailing in a reference file, and now that they need your type
of product or service, they're calling. As a result, such inquiries
have a high probability of converting into a sale.
The 2 Percent Myth
What kind of response can you expect from business-to-business
direct mail? And what's the best way to measure it? It depends on
whether we're talking about lead-generating mailings or mailings
designed to generate a direct sale. But first, a few general
guidelines that apply to both types of mailings.
 Page 45
Contrary to the widely held notion, there is no single figure that
can be used as an "average" or "typical" direct mail response rate.
At this point you may be thinking, ''I heard that 2 percent is the
average response rate.'' But what does that mean? Is it leads or
sales? Did 2 percent request more information, or did they actually
order the product? Since it's easier to get a lead than a sale, it seems
logical that response rates would differ for lead-generating versus
mail-order packages.
Also, people will tell you that direct mail packages with a separate
sales letter and reply card will outpull a self-mailer. For which
format is the 2 percent rate being quoted as typicalthe self-mailer
or the full package?
Another factor that varies the response rate is the product.
Obviously, a product with broad appeal to your audience would
generate a higher direct mail response rate than a product with
limited appeal. And you will probably get more inquiries for a
$2,000 product than a $2 million product.
A typical direct response rate does not exist, and it's a mistake to
blindly set a 2 percent response as your target goal for every
mailing. A better approach is to consider your first mailing effort
on a particular product as the baseline. Doctors frequently do this
with medical tests such as EKGS and mammograms. The first test or
scan in a healthy patient determines the patient's norm or baseline
condition. Variations in subsequent tests indicate an improvement
or deterioration in health.
It's the same with business-to-business direct mail. Let's say you
get a 3 percent response with your first mailing. That becomes your
baseline. If the next mailing pulls a 2 percent response, you know
you haven't done as well as you can with this product. If a third
mailing pulls a 3.5 percent response, you know you've got an
incremental improvement in gross response rate of half a percent
for your time and trouble. Ignore the "2 percent is standard" rule.
The baseline tells you what's average or typical for your product,
given your price, offer, and market.
Estimating Response to Business-to-Business Lead-Generating
Mailings
Although, as we've just discussed, I feel it's dangerous to give
typical response rates, I know that's what you are looking for. So
let me give you some feel for what you can expect when you mail a
lead-generating
 Page 46
mailing. However, I cannot stress enough that these are rough
averages only and may or may not apply to your product.
For a mailing in which the only response is a "hard" offerthat is, to
respond you must take an active step, such as calling a salesperson,
having a sales representative visit your office, or going to a seminar
or demonstrationthe response rates range from 0.5 percent to 2
percent.
For a mailing that has both a hard offer and a soft offerthe soft offer
typically being "mail the enclosed reply card for a free
brochure"average response rates are from 1 to 3 percent or so. For
a business-to-business lead-generating mailing that stresses the soft
offerthat is, emphasizes the free booklet, report, or information kit
being offered rather than the product itselfaverage response rates
are from 1.5 to 4 percent. If the free offer is particularly enticing, or
if a valuable premium (free gift as an incentive to respond) is
added, response rates of 4 to 5 percent or more are possible.
Note: I define a response as a fax, phone call, letter, E-mail,
homepage hit with registration, or the return of a reply card by a
prospect responding to your mailing. These figures do not include
prospects who do not respond to the initial mailing but are
persuaded to take action after a follow-up phone call, visit, or
mailing. The response rate figures also do not take into account
whether the leads are of good quality (genuine prospects) or poor
quality (brochure collectors).
Here we are talking about inquiries only. But what percentage of
prospects who inquire and request a brochure or sales presentation
actually buy? Again, it varies. But typically, between 10 and 25
percent of the sales leads can be converted to sales within a few
weeks to six months after the inquiries are received. In some cases,
this is done with a simple follow-up mailing or phone call. For
more expensive products or services, it may take numerous
meetings, calls, letters, and follow-ups to close the deal.
Estimating Response to Business-to-Business Mail-Order Direct
Mail
The key observation that can be made about mail-order marketing
over the past several years is that response rates are on the decline.
One
 Page 47
fund-raising consultant told me, "Response rates to direct mail
packages seeking donations used to average 3 percent. Today, we
get a 1 percent response." Direct marketing expert Don Libey
observes that while response rates used to be 2 to 4 percent years
ago, today response rates of 0.25 to 0.5 percent are common.
Newsletters, magazines, and other products sold by mail have had
similar declines in response rates. Combined with increases in
postal rates and production costs, this has made it increasingly
difficult to sell products via direct mail at a profit.
What kind of response can you expect from a "solo" direct mail
package selling a single item direct via mail order? Response rates
of 0.5 percent to 2 percent are typical. Offers for high-priced
products, such as software, can be profitable at response rates
below 1 percent. It's tough to make a profit selling directly through
the mail a business product or service that sells for less than $25.
Response rates to business-to-business mail order solicitations vary
somewhat depending on the product category. For business
seminars, for example, the response rate is typically between 0.25
and 2 percent, and rarely higher. For software, response rates of 0.5
to 2 percent are typical, but they can be higher.
A More Meaningful Measure of Direct Marketing Success
Although percentage response is the simplest way to measure the
performance of a direct mail package, it's not the truest test. What
you really want to know is: Was the package profitable? Did it
make money? Lose money? Break even? So you must analyze not
only number of replies received, but also gross sales and net profit
generated.
Measuring the Sales Results of Business-to-Business Lead-
Generating Direct Mail
Example: You use a lead-generating sales letter with reply card to
generate inquiries for a $2,000 business service. Your letter
generates a
 Page 48
2 percent response. That's twenty replies per thousand pieces
mailed. The cost of mailing the letter is $600 per thousand. To
calculate the cost per inquiry, we divide $600 by twenty inquiries
and get $30 per sales lead.
Let's say 10 percent of the twenty prospects buy the service. That's
two sales at $2,000 per contact for a gross of $4,000. Your profit
per thousand is the $4,000 in gross sales less the $600 per thousand
mail cost, or $3,400. To put it another way, you're getting an almost
7:1 return on your investment ($4,000 sales divided by $600
mailing cost). For each $1 spent on direct mail, you make almost
$7 in sales.
Measuring the Sales Results of Business-to-Business Mail-Order
Direct Mail
Example: Let's say we are selling a $149 software product via mail
order. The cost to manufacture and ship the product is $15 per unit.
Therefore, the profit is $149 minus $15, or $134 per unit sold.
Now, we have to print and mail a direct mail package to get orders.
Let's say our cost for the mailing is $700 per thousand. To calculate
the number of orders needed to break even:
Breakeven = Mailing cost per thousand ÷ Profit per order
For our example:
$700 mailing expense ÷ $134 profit per order = breakeven on 5.2
orders per thousand pieces mailed
In terms of percentage response this comes to:
5.2 orders ÷ 1,000 mailings × 100 = 0.52 percent
Therefore, we break even on the mailing with only 0.52 percent
response rate. At a 1 percent response rate, we get $2 in income for
every $1 spent on direct mail. At a 2 percent response rate, we
quadruple our investment every time we mail 1,000 pieces.
Break-Even Objectives for Business-to-Business versus Consumer
Mail Order
What should your goal be? It depends. Some mailers are willing to
break even or lose money on the first order to gain a customer and
build a
 Page 49
mailing list. For them, the profits are made on the back endthat is,
mailing additional offers to existing customers. Many consumer
mail-order firms take this approach. So do large-volume business-
to-business direct marketers that sell a broad line of products and
have many thousands of customers and prospects.
Business-to-business direct marketers that have only one or two
products need to make a profit from the front end, or initial
mailing, because they don't have a back end of related items to sell.
Companies that have specialized, high-priced products appealing to
a limited market also seek substantial profits on the front end. Also,
many smaller companies simply cannot afford to lose money to
acquire customers and therefore must design their direct marketing
programs so that profit is made from every mailing.

Business-to-Business Versus Consumer Databases

As mentioned, back-end mailings offering related items to your
"house" mailing list or database of customers are generally very
profitable for two reasons:
1. They cost less. Since you own the list, the $100 per thousand or
so cost of renting mailing lists is eliminated. And, because the
customers already know you and your product, a less elaborate
mailing piece can often be used.
2. The response is generally betteragain because the customer
knows you and is already doing business with your firm.
According to Ken Morris, of Morris Direct Marketing, a mailing
list expert, repeated marketing efforts to a database of customers
and prospects will produce from two to ten times higher response
than mailing to rented lists of "cold" prospect names. Will such
database marketing be important to you? Only if (1) your universe
is large, (2) you can gain a big enough market share to build a
sizable customer list, and (3) you have other products, services,
accessories, or things to sell to these customers.
 Page 50
One of my clients is a management consulting firm that sells a very
expensive consulting program to management at large
corporations. Because the firm is small and the consulting contracts
are large, they take on very few jobs in a year. Therefore, they have
a small client list. So they cannot justify the cost of doing an
elaborate series of database mailings to a database of only 50 to
100 clients. Instead, consultants simply keep in touch with their
clients, sending personal correspondence about new services or
programs from time to time.
Another client, on the other hand, has an installed base of 22,000
organizations using the company's software. Obviously, doing
direct mail programs to sell training, consulting services,
maintenance and support contracts, upgrades, and new versions of
the software can be extremely profitable and worthwhile for them
because the house list is big enough to justify the time and expense
involved.
An article in The Competitive Advantage advises marketers to keep
their databases current. Customer databases can become inaccurate
rapidly as prospects get promoted, leave the company, or change
job title or function. Prospect databases, such as inquiry lists, also
become dated as the needs, budgets, and applications of prospects
change or expand.
In today's age of corporate downsizing and entrepreneurial start-
ups, the marketplace is changing more rapidly than ever.
Competitive Advantage estimates that the market "renews" itself
every three years, meaning the buyers of today won't be around or
will be in different positions within three years, and a new crop of
prospects will take over many of their positions.
 Page 51

3
Applying Direct Response Techniques to Business-
to-Business Marketing
Is all business-to-business marketing direct marketing? Recall from
Chapter 1 the definitions of general advertising and direct
marketing. General advertising is concerned with building an
image or creating an awareness of a product over the long haul;
direct marketing is concerned with generating an immediate,
tangible responseeither an inquiry or an order.
Most industrial, high-tech, and business-to-business marketers
think of their marketing communications programs as general or
image-building advertising. That is, they think their goal is to
communicate a message, or establish a product's position in the
marketplace, or make the company name well known. And to a
degree, that's desirable and should be part of your objective.
For some manufacturers, measurement is difficult. Others, frankly,
don't think it's important. One large corporate client stated bluntly:
"The success of our in-house advertising department is determined
by whether the client (product manager) likes the ad or brochure
we produce. We sell expensive capital equipment. We don't
measure ad response, and I'm not sure it would be meaningful."
 Page 52
Business-to-business marketers who sell to small niche markets
also may feel that direct marketing, or even marketing
communications overall, is not critical to their success. "We have
only fifty potential customers, and we know who they are," said
one manager selling specialized equipment to auto makers. "If we
have something new to sell them, we pick up the phone and call the
fifty people."
Even business marketers whose operations are more focused on
direct marketing cannot track results with 100 percent certainty. A
major computer company recently told me that despite its best
efforts, one in four inquiries cannot be traced to a specific
promotion. Even so, the reality is that 98 percent of all business-to-
business marketing communications, in addition to communicating
a message or building an image, also seek to elicit some response
from the potential customera key component of any direct
marketing communication.
Think about it. Unlike the consumer, who can simply walk into a
nearby store and buy consumer products advertised in the
newspaper or on TV, the business buyer has to initiate direct
contact with the seller of a business product or service to make a
purchase. Virtually every business-to-business ad, catalog,
brochure, or mailing contains at least a phone number or address
where the reader can call or write to get more information, request
a price quotation, or speak to a salesperson.
While it may not be traditional one-step direct marketing or mail
order, just about every business-to-business sale takes place as a
result of the prospect's making a direct contact with the buyer. All
business-to-business marketing communications have, as one of
their key objectives, the mission of persuading the prospect to
make that contact.
Therefore, I am suggesting that virtually all business-to-business
marketing communications are direct marketing, whether we think
of them that way or not. The difference between the business-to-
business marketer who thinks in terms of direct marketing and the
business-to-business marketer who doesn't is simply that the
former produces communications that generate immediate response
and sales results while the latter tends not to.
The premise of this chapterand indeed, a central premise of this
bookis that you can make your business-to-business marketing
communications many times more effective and profitable by
deliberately
 Page 53
designing them as response-getting direct marketing promotions
and not merely information-communicating general advertising
pieces.
Further, you can do this not only with marketing communication
vehicles that are traditionally used in direct response, (e.g., ads and
direct mail), but you can also turn any marketing communication
into a direct response communication, even those not traditionally
used to generate direct inquiries or sales. These include speeches,
seminars, product brochures, press releases, magazine articles, and
many others discussed later in this chapter.

Turning a Regular Marketing Communication into a Direct

Response Marketing Communication
Converting a conventional marketing communication into a direct
response marketing communication takes more than just slapping
on a telephone number and address, although that certainly is part
of it. Actually, it's a combination of techniques and mind-set.
By techniques, I am referring to the mechanical techniques direct
marketers use to turn ordinary print or audiovisual communication
into direct response communication. These techniques include use
of business reply cards, order forms, toll-free telephone numbers,
free booklets, special time-limited offers, and coupons. By mind-
set, I mean that to become an effective direct marketer, you have to
think differently than you may have in the past when it comes to
creating advertising that sells.
A Different Mind-Set
The business-to-business marketer who enthusiastically embraces
the direct response mind-set to marketing communications has a
different approach to creating advertising materials than the
marketer who does not think in direct marketing terms. General
marketers, or generalists, as David Ogilvy calls them, think as
follows: the primary objective of an ad, brochure, or commercial is
to create a favorable impression in
 Page 54
the mind of the buyer. Marketing communications build image,
create awareness, or develop preference or recognition for a
particular brand or product over an extended period of time.
This calls for creating an ad, brochure, or other marketing
document that is eye-catching, attention-grabbing, and extremely
memorable. The communication has to stand out so that it is
remembered. Also, all marketing communications should have a
similar look, feel, theme, and message, so that the cumulative
effect is to implant the desired ideas in the minds of the prospects.
As a result, generalists place a great emphasis on brevity because a
shorter message is easier to remember than a longer one. They also
tend to rely heavily on slogans, tag lines, themes, positioning
statements, or similar devices that sum up the main selling idea in a
few pithy sentences and can be used over and over on each new ad
or marketing document. Graphic design becomes dominant over
content and sometimes even over strategy. Their favorite
measurement is often a readership study that shows high reader
recall of their ad, a market research study that shows high
recognition of their company or product name, or an award given
for excellence or creativity in advertising from one of their industry
associations.
General business-to-business marketers prefer a creative approach
to advertising, fearing that direct marketing techniques, such as all-
type designs and long-copy ads, bore prospects. Many generalists
will tell you that people don't read copy and therefore rely heavily
on graphics, illustrations, pictures, and design to convey their
message. Their main instruction to the copywriter: keep it short.
Their main instruction to the designer: make it different, eye-
catching.
Generalists also place heavy emphasis on continuityhaving a
consistent graphic look and style to all marketing materials. There
is some validity to this approach, especially in print advertising:
uniform graphics build recognition so that when readers see your
ad, they immediately identify it with your company. At least one of
my clients has proven this through readership studies made on a
long-running series of graphically consistent print ads.
Generalists either aren't concerned with the next step in the buying
process (believing prospects will take it only when they are good
and ready) or else fear that asking the reader to take direct action is
too crass, inappropriate, or offensive. They avoid using coupons in
ads for
 Page 55
fear of destroying the clean design of their layouts. Some even
object to putting a phone number or address on a brochure, for
reasons I have never fully understood.
Much general advertising seeks to entertain, on the theory that
entertaining advertising will be more attention-getting and
memorable, which will help build brand awareness. Unfortunately,
there is no evidence that having people like or admire your
advertising compels them to buy the products being advertised.
Indeed, there have been numerous stories in the press of ad
campaigns that won creative awards and kudos for their creators,
but no sales for the advertisers. The clever Nissan commercials,
featuring cameos by Mr. K, a mysterious Oriental figure, got its
creator inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame. Oprah had him
as a guest on her show. Time magazine and Rolling Stone called it
the best ad of the year.
Yet, according to the Wall Street Journal, ''While the ad was
playing, sales were falling.'' In October 1996, the month after the
ad made its debut, U.S. sales at Nissan fell 10.2 percent compared
with October of the previous year. As one Nissan dealer put it: "It
didn't sell cars." Unfortunately, this scenario is played out
repeatedly on Madison Avenue many times every year.
The Direct Marketing Approach
By comparison, business-to-business marketers who consider
themselves direct marketers and are fans of using direct marketing
techniques approach their advertising and marketing
communications programs quite differently.
Like general marketers, direct marketers may have a variety of
marketing objectives, including building image, communicating a
message, and so on. But unlike general marketers, one of the direct
marketers' primary objectives is to generate direct responses from
every marketing communication. That is, they intend to generate
inquiries that can be counted and measured, and to then convert the
maximum number of inquiries to sales.
For a variety of reasons, it's often difficult to determine the source
of many of the leads, and it's even harder to track which sales came
as a result of a direct marketing generated inquiry. So business-to-
business
 Page 56
direct marketers don't always have a precise measure of how well
each marketing program is performing. Realizing that, they still
strive to track and measure results as well as possible. Business-to-
business direct marketers want to know, whenever possible, how
much sales were produced for every dollar spent on advertising,
public relations, direct mail, or sales promotion.
The general marketer says, "Business-to-business advertising helps
build image and awareness. It doesn't produce sales. Salespeople
do that." The manager with a direct marketing mind-set says,
"Baloney. My communications program generates direct inquiries
from qualified prospects, a certain percentage of which convert to
sales. A lot of what we do either sells or helps sell more of our
company's products and services."
While general marketers may emphasize creativity and the quality
of writing and design, direct marketers are results-oriented. Ads
and brochures are written to give business prospects precisely the
information they need to take the next step in the buying process.
That next step is always spelled out, incentives are given for taking
it, and mechanisms (e.g., reply cards, toll-free numbers, coupons,
fax forms, home pages) are provided to encourage prospects to take
immediate action.
The business-to-business direct marketer says, "It's all well and
good to talk about image and positioning and future sales, but I
want an immediate return on every dollar spent on mailings or
literature or space ads." While general marketers think of
themselves as employed in communications, direct marketers
would rather sell than just communicate.
Interestingly, many advertising managers working for large
corporations that sell business-to-business products tend to be
generalists, while entrepreneurs and managers at small- to medium-
sized firms tend to be direct marketers. Why is this so? Several
reasons. Large corporations, because of their financial resources,
can afford some "waste." That is, they can spend $500,000 on a
"corporate image" campaign that makes people feel good but
doesn't do anything for sales, and it won't hurt them.
To small firms, on the other hand, spending $500,000 or $50,000 or
even $5,000 and not getting any return for it can hurt considerably.
Entrepreneurs, in my experience, are extremely insistent on getting
an immediate payback for money spent on marketing, probably
because they see the money as coming directly out of their own
pockets as opposed to corporate managers, who may be spending
someone else's money.
 Page 57
Corporate managers may also have responsibility for many
different product lines, divisions, or groups, and a great deal of
their energy goes toward coordinating multiple marketing
programs and ensuring that they are consistent and of high quality.
Small- or medium-sized business managers usually have only one
product or service to sell, so salesnot consistencyis the key
concern.
Another reason small businesspeople are often advocates of
measurable direct response marketing is that they actually receive
and, in some cases, follow up on the leads generated. A lead is
meaningful to them because it means a sale. In large corporations,
where there are many channels of distribution, marketing-generated
leads may not be of critical importance, depending on how the
company is organized. I have some clients who live and die by how
many marketing-generated leads are converted to sales; I have
others for whom lead generation is not of primary concern.
Continuity, or consistency in style, tone, and design from piece to
piece, is not emphasized by direct marketing types. Indeed, in some
cases, response can be dampened if pieces look too much alike and
increased by making each piece markedly different. For example,
in magazine publishing, renewal and billing letter series perform
better when each piece is a different size and has a different outer
envelope. When the pieces are all the same size and format, the
response goes down. The reason? Perhaps when people receive a
series of mailings that all look the same, they think they are getting
the initial piece over and over and just throw the subsequent pieces
out.
Why Every Marketing Communication Should Be a Direct
Response Communication
If your marketing communications program is more geared toward
general advertising and image building now, am I telling you to
scrap it? No. Effective communication, product positioning,
company image, and awareness building all have their places and
shouldn't be abandoned. Don't replace your existing marketing
communications program; instead,
 Page 58
augment it. Using proven direct marketing methods, you can take
an existing program and dramatically enhance its effectiveness by
applying proven direct response techniques, while leaving its core
intact.
If you could leave your marketing communications program
essentially unchanged and make a few simple improvements at low
cost to dramatically multiply the sales and profits it generates,
would you do it? Of course, you would. And that's what this book
shows you how to do. Converting conventional business-to-
business marketing communications programs into direct response
communications offers you there important benefits:
1. It Doesn't Interfere with Your Communications Objectives
You can convert your existing marketing communications into
direct response communications without reducing their ability to
communicate the messages you want to get across to your
marketplace.
General advertisers hold a myth that says direct marketing is
somehow cheap and sleazy, and using direct marketing techniques
in general advertising lessens the overall impact. But it's just not
true. How does adding a coupon "destroy" an ad, as many general
ad agency art directors would claim? It doesn't. Why is putting an
address and phone number on a product brochure "inappropriate,"
as a marketing manager at a major New York bank once insisted to
me? It isn't. The thought that using direct marketing techniques
(i.e., business reply cards, coupons, and order forms) negatively
affects image, credibility, and communications effectiveness in
incorrect, and there is not one shred of evidence to support it. In
fact, I have found the opposite to be the case, which brings us to
our next point.
2. Using Direct Marketing Techniques Actually Improves the
Quality of Marketing Communications
Because direct marketing is measurable, the advertising manager or
copywriter who produces a direct response promotion is subject to
a rigorous, unforgiving scrutiny the general advertiser is not. When
you produce a general advertisement or commercial, you're
measured by subjective judgment only: Clients or bosses either like
it or don't. So you can please them by revising according to their
wishes.
 Page 59
In direct marketing, it's different. A sales letter that pleases the
client may fail to generate a profitable response. Conversely, a
copy approach the client hates may prove to be the most effective
in the marketplace. Therefore, you're not held accountable only to a
client's or manager's subjective standards; your success is also
measured by how many leads or sales your work generates once
produced.
Direct marketers are constantly under pressure to have their
mailing or ad "test well" against the control (the current mailing or
ad) or, if there is no control, to generate a high level of response.
This motivates us to stop being creative and clever and concentrate
instead on writing and designing promotions that generate the
highest possible response in the marketplace. Instead of indulging
creative whims or designing something that's clever or funny or
that will win us an award, we concentrate on selling and achieve it
by producing materials that, while effective, are often
unglamorous. Being accountable for the marketing results of what
you design, write, or produce forces you to view what you're doing
as a selling effort rather than "creating literature."
As a result, treating every marketing communication as a direct
response communication forces a discipline that makes ad agencies
and copywriters "sweat" over their work so that it's productive, not
beautiful. Not only does this increase marketing results, but it
reduces excess and waste because the fanciest or most expensive
approach, while easy to produce, is rarely the most cost-effective or
profitable one for the client.
3. Direct Marketing Is More Tangible
When you're justifying a marketing budget to top management,
saying that it "builds image" or helps "position the company" is a
hard sell. Top management personnel in business-to-business firms
are usually not advertising oriented, and they focus on immediate
results, not long term objectives that are difficult to quantify.
By generating substantial inquiries and sales from every marketing
communication and building a database, direct marketing
techniques generate the kind of tangible return on investment that
management can understand and appreciate.
You know that, despite what management might say about the
importance of image building or product awareness, when you
spend $10,000 on an ad or a mailing, managers don't ask, "How
much image
 Page 60
did we build?" or "How's our product awareness?" They look at the
ad and say, "How many inquiries did we get?'' They look at the
mailing piece and say, "What percentage response did we get?"
You also know that the best way to convince management of the
worth of your program is not with awareness or readership studies
(though those may help) but to point to a big new client or contract
recently awarded to your firm and say, "That sale came from a lead
generated by our ad in XYZ Magazine." That's the kind of real world
sales result that gets top management excited about marketing
communications. That's the kind of potential result I can show you
how to get from every marketing document you produce.
4. Direct Marketing Is Self-Liquidating
Even if you're not a "pure" direct marketerthat is, you don't sell
directly off the printed ad or brochure pageyou should convert your
marketing communications to direct marketing communications.
They'll still retain their basic look, theme, and message, but you'll
gain a steady flow of direct inquiries and leads from pieces that
formerly were just "out there" being looked at but not responded to.
As an example, we took a press release a client had done on a
specific technology issue and offered to send a lengthier
explanation of the key points, reprinted in the form of a simple
one-page checklist, to anyone who sent $1 plus a self-addressed
stamped envelope. The release cost about $1,500 to write, print,
and mail.
Generally, most clients look for press releases to generate media
coverage, which this one did. But in addition, it also generated
2,500 requests for the tip sheet. Now, the purpose was not to make
a big profit from selling a $1 tip sheet. But notice: we had no
outgoing postage cost for fulfillment because the prospects
supplied self-addressed stamped envelopes. In addition, the $2,500
in one dollar bills we collected more than paid for the entire
promotion, making it completely self-liquidating.
5. Direct Marketing Is "Hot"
In addition to being an independent copywriter and marketing
consultant, I also give speeches, conduct seminars, and provide in-
house train-
 Page 61
ing for corporations. Ten years ago, copywriting was the most
requested topic. Not any more. Today it's direct mail by a wide
margin, followed closely by Internet marketing and telephone
selling.
Direct marketing is hot. It's what today's business-to-business
managers want to do more of. Sure, some people don't like it. But
if you're an ad manager, self-employed marketing professional, ad
agency, executive, or product manager, rest assured your client or
boss will ask you someday, "Why don't we do more direct
marketing?"
Recent cover stories in major business magazines report that
traditional advertisingmagazines, newspapers, televisionis in
decline. On the other hand, marketing that brings a more tangible,
immediate, and (some critics would say) short-term resultwebsites,
sales promotion, direct mail, telemarketingare on the rise. So get a
jump and put direct marketing into your marketing
communications now. Be proactive, not reactive.
6. In Business-to-Business Lead Generation It's Relatively Easy to
Make the Program Pay Off
Many consumer direct marketersmost of whom sell relatively low-
priced consumer merchandise directly via mail order through direct
mail, space ads, or catalogsare having a tough time right now. With
response rates down and the cost-per-thousand of catalogs and solo
mailings way up, it's more difficult today than in the 1980s or
1970s to break even or make a profit. Many mailers find the
traditional direct mail package too costly, and are moving to lower
cost-per-thousand formats such as snap-packs and double
postcards.
The truth is, making money in mail order has always been tricky.
With small profit margins, a small change in percentage response
can mean the difference between profit and loss. At 1 percent, you
could be making money, but at 0.5 percent, you'd be out of
business. Business-to-business direct marketing, because it usually
involves lead generation rather than direct sales, and because the
products being sold are generally more expensive than consumer
merchandise, isn't as vulnerable to declining response rates or
increases in production and postage costs.
For example, the typical mailing I write is a one- to two-page sales
letter with a business reply card and perhaps a small booklet in a
#10
 Page 62
envelope, all designed to generate sales leads for a business
product or service costing from $2,000 to $20,000 to $200,000 or
more. Let's say $20,000 is typical. At a cost per thousand of $700,
if we only sell one unit per thousand pieces mailed (0.1 percent
sales rate), we're getting a return on our marketing dollar of nearly
29:1. With a client in this situation, they don't care all that much if
postage goes up and the package now costs $800 per thousand;
they can still live quite nicely with one sale per thousand at that
cost level.
So business-to-business lead-generating direct marketing is more
immune than consumer mail order to rises in production, paper,
printing, list rental, and postal costs. That's a nice advantage, and it
gives you a little more room to relax than our counterparts in
consumer mail order.
In fact, the profit potential from even a small lead-generating
campaign can be enormous. One client recently hired me to write a
mailing going to only 2,000 prospects to sell them a $700,000
machine. Now, it may seem like a lot of work to create a mailing to
be read by only 2,000 people, especially if you're a consumer
marketer used to mailing millions. On the other hand, the client
will profit handsomely even if the return rate is 1/20th of 1 percent
(only one prospect buys a machine for $700,000).
7. Direct Marketing Is More Targeted
As a rule, general or image advertising tends to be written to appeal
to a broad audience, while the discipline in direct marketing calls
for targeting appeals to specific audiences. This is good because
experience proves again and again that the more carefully you
select your audience and tailor your message to the concerns,
needs, and desires of that audience, the more your message will be
read, remembered, and reacted to.
At a recent meeting, I was sitting with a young advertising manager
who was enormously talented and dedicated, but not heavily
experienced in direct marketing. Staff members were generating
generic mailings on their computer system; I suggested they
identify specific vertical markets and target mailings to these
markets. The advertising manager, who had been trained in general
advertising, then asked me about the length of copy. "What is
bettera one-page letter or a two-page letter?" As we talked, the
president of the firman experienced direct marketer and student of
mail orderentered the room.
 Page 63
"It doesn't have to be one or two pages," he said to his manager.
"The letter can be eight pages long and they will read every wordif
it is of interest to them." And you can only generate this level of
sustained interest when copy is targeted. Specifics captivate an
audience. Generalities may roll off the tongue more trippingly, but
readers soon tire of them and move on. Concretes sell; abstracts do
not engage interest.

How to Convert Ordinary Marketing Communications into Direct

Marketing Communications
If you're an experienced direct marketer, this section may be a
refresher or even too elementary to you. But for this book to be
complete, we need to present a checklist, or formula, readers can
use to convert existing marketing programs into response-getting
direct marketing communications. Here then are the requirements
for a successful direct marketing piece.
1. Attract Attention with a Benefit-Oriented or Curiosity-Arousing
Headline, Teaser, or Lead
The headline of the ad, cover of the brochure, or teaser on the outer
envelope of an effective direct marketing piece gains attention with
a reader-centered message. Typically, the message either promises
a benefit or arouses curiosity. It might also attract notice by
identifying or selecting an audience.
The key point is that the headline is designed to lure readers into
the body copy. This is in contrast to general or image advertising,
where the headline is often designed to deliver a memorable
message and do nothing else. The general advertiser makes the
assumption that people won't read body copy and therefore the ad
headline should be designed to make an impression or
communicate a single, easily remembered idea.
The direct marketer's approach is best summed up by mail-order
guru Joseph's Sugarman, who says the purpose of the headline is to
get the prospect to read the first sentence of the ad; the purpose of
the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence; and so
on. Marketers
 Page 64
with mail-order backgrounds assert that genuine prospects will read
long copy if it's of interest to them, and that the more you can get
the prospect to read, the better your chance of making the sale.
Some examples? The ASU Travel Guide, a paid subscription
publication that contains information on travel discounts available
only to airline employees, retirees, and their families, recently
mailed a package to get former subscribers to resubscribe. The
outer envelope teaser read, "We want to put the world at your
fingertips. For free." This type of teaser arouses curiosity. What
does it mean? What is being given free? The offer here was for a
free mini world atlas to those who resubscribed.
An example of a headline that promises a reward for reading the
copy is this lead-in from a mailing from NYCE, a regional electronic
funds transfer (EFT) service provider, to financial institutions it
wanted to come to a local meeting and sign up for its service: "In
Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, financial institutions
whose customers travel throughout the northeast can now gain a
sustainable edge over their toughest competitors." The payoff is the
financial institution can save approximately 10 cents per ATM
transaction if they use the NYCE network.
An example of an outer envelope teaser that gains attention by
identifying the audience is a mailing recently sent to me by Writer's
Digest. The teaser, "Attention Freelance Writers," works because,
if you're a freelance writer, you figure the contents are targeted to
your interests. Of course, this would be an utter failure if mailed to
nonwriters.
The first step, then, to converting ordinary business
communications to direct response communications is to take a no-
nonsense, direct approach to writing headlines for article reprints,
brochure covers, booklets, and whatever other materials you
produce. Change all those cutesy headlines, those puns, those plays
on words your agency thought were so clever! People don't get it.
Be clear and directjust say what you want to say. Business
prospects will respond.
2. Appeal to the Reader's Self-Interest
At this point, you may be thinking, "Wait a minute, Bob. This
doesn't sound right. My product or service is boring. If I present it
in a direct, straightforward fashion, prospects won't read my copy. I
know that I
 Page 65
like clever, creative, and humorous ads and TV commercials.
Aren't my prospects the same?''
I understand your concern. And I am not saying you should never
be creative or clever or different. On the contrary, if you can say
something of interest to your prospect in a fresh and different way,
they'll respond to it. The problem is that creativity, which should be
just another tool in the marketer's arsenal, has become for many
advertising people the end rather than the means. Too often the
client starts a campaign with the commandment to the staff,
agency, or freelancers, "Be different, be creative," rather than "Be
effective, be relevant, communicate this key message."
Ad agency executive John Egley, writing in Business Marketing
magazine, said it best: "It is the unrelenting, oppressive pressure to
be imaginative that is responsible for most bad advertising. It
causes people to suspend judgment, to lose sight of priorities, and
to forget what they're supposed to be doing." Dr. Jeffrey Lant,
author of No More Cold Calls (JLA Publications) warns against
"pointless originality," instead urging marketers to study the
market, find out what's working, and adapt it to their own
marketing and sales efforts.
Why is the pressure to be creative and original so strong in
business-to-business marketing? Because the people creating the
advertising are not the people it is aimed at. So, for example, a
liberal arts trained creative director, afraid to make the ad too
"technical" for fear of boring the reader, "livens up" the subject
with word play and far out graphics. What the creative director
does not realize is that the subject of the ad, while boring to him, is
not boring to the prospect. The prospect is interested in widget
technology and wants to know more about it.
The headline "What you need to know about today's changing
widget technology" may be a formula, but formulas work.
Advertising professionals want to be new and different. Business
prospects just want quick, accurate information about products and
services they need to solve problems. So the pressure to be creative
is a result of clients or advertising professionals not thinking like
prospects.
Put yourself in the shoes of the doctor, chemical engineer, or
grocery store manager you are writing to. As best-selling diet book
author Samm Sinclair Baker observes, "What attracts and involves
the reader primarily is his or her self-interest." Appeal to the
reader's self-interest.
 Page 66
If you are writing to hospital administrators who want to improve
patient care while generating more revenue for the hospital, put on
the outer envelope, "Inside: How to Improve Patient Care While
Increasing Revenue."
Another example: If you send me a catalog of running gear, I won't
read it because I don't run. But send it to my friend David Martin
and he'll spend hours with it, especially if it has special gear for
"hashing" or any of the other unusual running activities and races
he's involved with. Same copy, different audience, different
reaction. Running appeals to David's interests, not mine. Learn
what interests your reader, and you will be successful.
Too many marketersthe overwhelming majoritydon't do this. They
sit around a table and say, "What's great about our company?
What's revolutionary about our product design? What makes us
superior?" Or, the CEO says to stress quality . . . or safety . . . or
productivity . . . or whatever this year's theme happens to be.
Successful business-to-business marketers start with the prospect,
not the product. They ask, "What do my prospects care about?
What is their biggest problemtheir fears, worries, interests,
concerns?" Write about that, and position your product as the
solution, and you are on your way to increasing response.
Dramatically.
3. Stress Benefits
A benefit is what your product or service will do for the reader. In
many instancesnot all, howeveryour prospects are primarily
interested in the benefits of your product or service, not the product
or service itself. For example, when I was threatened with a lawsuit
recently, I wasn't buying "legal services" from my attorney
(although that's what his letterhead advertises); I was buying the
elimination of wasted time, headaches, money losses, and worries
by having him make the lawsuit go away.
A benefit is what makes your product or service worth the price
you are asking. The benefit is how the prospect comes out ahead by
using your product or engaging your services. A feature is merely a
factual description about a product. A feature of a plastic valve is
that it is light in weight. An advantage is that it weighs less than
metal valves. A benefit is that it can be used in existing piping
systems without bend-
 Page 67
ing or stressing the supporting pipes and without the need to add
reinforcing structures.
Many consumer direct marketers stress, "The consumer only cares
about benefits. Talk only about benefits. Don't talk about features;
no one cares." This may be true in consumer marketing, but it is
not always the case in business-to-business marketing.
Entrepreneurs, executives, managers, and others who are not
technical specialists tend to be more concerned with benefits than
features; but engineers, scientists, hackers, hobbyists, enthusiasts,
and other technically knowledgeable buyers may be looking for a
product that meets certain specifications, and are primarily
interested in data, not "fluff."
Regardless of which group you're selling to, benefits should still be
incorporated into your copy. When an engineer says, "I don't read
copy; I'm only looking at the specs," he or she is only telling half
the truth. Technical professionals like to portray themselves as the
experts, and many hold the advertising profession in contempt, so
they like to tell you they "don't read all that copy." The whole truth,
however, is that they don't fully understand the value or benefits of
all the features and can be swayed to buy a product if you show
that a certain feature delivers a desired benefit they didn't know
about.
The key is that, while features and benefits have different degrees
of importance depending on the product and the audience, you
should never neglect the benefits altogether, but should always
stress the benefits as well as the features. Pure "spec" copy that
lists only facts and features is rarely effective. It needs to be
augmented with some "sell" copy that gives readers a clearer
understanding of how they can benefit from ownership of the
product.
4. Don't Forget the Features
One easy way to cover both features and benefits is with cause and
effect statements. These statements say, "Because the product has
such and such a feature, it gives you such and such a benefit." For
example:
Because the Fast-Flo valve has no pockets or cavities, there are no
"dead spaces" where fluid can collect. Which means bacterial growth
that can contaminate process fluids is eliminated.
 Page 68
Rapid cryogenic chilling of the full contents of every bin prevents
bacterial growth that can compromise food safety and quality.
Maintaining consistent temperature minimizes product shrink loss.
Another technique is to create a features/benefits table. In the left-
hand column, you list the features. In the right-hand column, you
describe the benefit each feature gives the user. For a data sheet
describing a high resolution laser printer, the feature might be
"1,200 dots per inch resolution." The benefit might read: "Allows
you to reproduce directly from the printer output without going
through a service bureau."
Again, when writing to managers, executives, entrepreneurs, and
other readers who are not well-versed in your technology or don't
want exhaustive details, you would stress the benefits much more
than the features. When writing to engineers, scientists, enthusiasts,
hobbyists, experts, and other technically sophisticated audiences,
you would probably give nearly equal weight to features and
benefits, depending on your audience and the objective of the
piece.
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMS), value-added resellers
(VARS), and others who buy products for resale represent an audience
that is especially interested in details, specifications, and features.
Their concern is primarily whether your product fits the
specifications of the larger system into which they plan to integrate
it. They are also concerned with quality and reliability, and with the
limitations of a productwhat it can and cannot do. Benefits,
however, are often of secondary concern, since they are resellers
rather than end-users.
5. Acknowledge and Address the Prospect's Likely Objections
Successful direct response copy not only gives readers a sales
presentation on why they should be interested in the product; it also
attempts to overcome reader resistance by dealing with objections.
Objections are reasons why prospects think they don't need to
respond even though you say the product is good for them. Rather
than avoid these objections, direct marketers tend to address them
in the copy. Not only does this help push readers toward action, but
it also makes the copy more interesting to read because it talks
about things readers are already thinking about.
Example: if you think your reader will not request information on
your product because of its high cost, you might have a subhead
that
 Page 69
reads: "But Can I Afford the X-2000?" Copy under the subhead
presents any arguments that help overcome the price objection,
such as price comparisons, return on investment analysis,
lease/rental options, discounts, easy payment plans, and so on. The
idea is to get the reader to think, "Oh, maybe I can afford this after
all. Let me mail the reply card and get the brochure."
6. Clearly Identify and Explicitly State the Next Step
General business communications are often vague about the next
step. Many executives feel it's somehow in poor taste to clearly
spell out what you want the reader to do, and when. But to increase
marketing results, that's precisely what you must do: tell the reader
what the next step is and give them instructions for taking it.
You should add a section of copy that provides this information to
your fliers, circulars, ads, data sheets, and other printed marketing
documents. I like to introduce this "next step" section with a
subhead and put it either at the end of the body copy or in a
separate box on the last page of the document. The subhead might
read "The Next Step," "Get the FactsFree," "Take the Next
StepThere's No Obligation," or something like that. Copy
specifically tells the reader what to do next, and how. For example:
It's easy to find out how CS/ADS can increase the productivity of your
programmers and the quality of the applications they build. To
request a demonstration in your office, or to receive a free brochure,
mail the enclosed reply card. Or call us today at (XXX) XXX-XXXX.
For the lowest prices on compressor parts and lubricants, call NAPCO
now toll-free, (800) XXX-XXXX. Even if you don't need a part right
now, but just have a question about compressors, call anyway. We'll
 give you a straight answerwith no sales pressure, no cost, and no
obligation to buy.
Avoid weak endings that are vague or uncertain. Don't end your
letter with "I look forward to establishing a mutually profitable
relationship with your firm." Instead, if you want them to contact
you, tell them to call or write, give them a reason, and have them
call or write for a specific thing: a demonstration, a free sample, a
brochure, or a booklet. Always say what the next step is, and tell
the reader to take it.
 Page 70
7. Give Readers a Reason to Respond Now Instead of Later
Why is this important? Experience shows that a decision deferred
is a decision not made; if prospects don't respond immediately
upon receiving your mailing, chances are they won't respond at all.
''I'll think about it" generally translates into "It's not a priority, and
I'll probably never get around to it."
For this reason, it pays to give the reader a reason to respond now
instead of later. In fact, the best direct marketing copy not only
gives the reader a reason or incentive to respond now, but also
spells out the negatives that can result from failure to respond.
If there is a real reason the reader should respond now instead of
later, state it in your copy. Real, pressing reasons are always the
most credible. For example, if you are a small firm and can only
handle a limited number of requests for proposals, tell prospects
this. Let them know that if they are not among the first to respond,
you may not be able to take them on as clients.
If there is no real reason to respond, the fallback position is to
invent one. For example, if you are giving away a valuable booklet
as a premium, say supplies are limited and you will fulfill requests
on a first-come, first-serve basis. Obviously, you could always print
more booklets, but saying the supply is limited gets people to
respond.
Here are examples of "respond now" incentives:
Seating at Regional Briefings is limited, so please register today.
Attendance is free, and there is no commitment, obligation, or sales
pressure of any kind.
 If you call us toll-free at (800) XXX-XXXX within the next fourteen
days, we will give you a free laboratory analysis of your compressor
oil. This free analysis can identify problems with your lubricants and
enable us to recommend an oil that can correct the situation,
improving performance and extending compressor life.
Another effective technique is to put an expiration date on your
offer. For example: "This offer expires December 31," or "You
must respond within ten days to receive the free bonus gift." If the
client will
 Page 71
not agree to a specific termination date for the offer, say, "This is a
limited time offer, and once it expires, it may never be repeated
again."
In addition to telling people why they should respond, you can also
tell them why it is a mistake not to reply. Fear of pain or loss or
missing out on a good opportunity is an effective motivator when
telling people about the potential negatives of failing to respond. I
normally throw away Publishers' Clearing House and similar
sweepstakes packages without a second glance, but one headline in
a recent mailing stopped me when it said: "You could be throwing
away $10 million." I don't like the fuss and bother of filling out
sweepstakes forms and don't think I'll ever win. But at the same
time, this headline stopped me because it indeed made me think
twice about tossing a piece of paper that could be the winner to the
$10 million grand prize.
An extremely effective technique for business-to-business lead-
generating direct mail and print advertising is to add an incentive
for prompt response. This can be a low-cost gift item, such as
merchandise, or a free booklet, special report, or other information
of value to the reader.
For instance, a client asked me to write a lead-generating sales
letter to motivate small businesses to request a free membership kit
for the client's trade association. I suggested adding the following
copy to the letter: "Respond within ten days, and we will also send
you our free special report, 'How to Manage Your Business More
Profitably in Today's Economy.'" In my experience, this type of
free booklet almost always produces a measurable lift in response.
People who are legitimate prospects but are hesitating over whether
to respond to the primary offer read this copy and think, "I may as
well go ahead and request the information kit" because they're
curious about what's in the report, and because it's free.
It's easy to create this type of incentive offer. Ad specialty houses
have all sorts of low-cost premium and gift items, available in any
price range that fits your budget, from less than $2 per item to more
than $10. And free information can easily be written or compiled
by you and published in the form of an audiocassette, video,
booklet, report, or other "information premium" you offer to
prospects.
What works best? If you are selling merchandise, and you are
doing it in a one-step mail-order sale, a free gift of merchandise
can be an
 Page 72
enormously effective incentive offer as can a price discount or two-
for-the-price-of-one sale. On the other hand, if you are generating
sales leads, especially for professional or technical services, the
free booklet or other free information offer seems to work best.
Offering expensive gift merchandise, while proven to boost mail-
order sales, is not as effective in lead generation. It certainly
increases quantity, but at the expense of quality. So you get
inquiries from people who wanted the trinket only, and salespeople
become frustrated when they follow up and find these "prospects"
have no interest whatsoever in the product or service being offered.
8. Prove Your Case
Effective business-to-business marketing communications proves
its case by presenting specific facts, figures, statistics, and
arguments that support the claims of superiority made and benefits
presented.
If you say you are better, faster, or cheaper, and you do not back up
your claims with proof, people won't believe you. ICS, for example,
convinces dentists it is qualified to handle their collections by
presenting facts and statistics as follows:
The nationwide leader in dental-practice collections, IC Systems has
collected past-due accounts receivables for 45,717 dental practices
since 1963. More than twenty state dental associations recommend
our services to their members.
IC Systems can collect more of the money your patients owe you. Our
overall recovery rate for dental collections is 12.4 percent higher than
the American Collectors' Association national average of 33.63
 percent. (For many dental practices, we have achieved recovery rates
even higher!)
BOC Gases tells customers that the gas mixtures it sells in cylinders
are accurately blended, and therefore that the composition listed on
the label is what the buyer will find inside the container. The
company makes this argument credible by explaining its blending
and weighing methodology:
Each mixture component is weighed into the cylinder on a high-
capacity, high-sensitivity equal-arm balance having a typical
precision of ±10 mg at 95 percent confidence. Balance accuracy is
confirmed prior to weigh-
 Page 73
ing by calibration with NIST-traceable Class S weights. Electronic
integration of the precision balance with an automated filling system
provides extremely accurate mixtures with tight blend tolerances.
The most powerful tool for proving your case is to demonstrate a
good track record in your field, showing that your product or
service is successful in delivering the benefits and other results you
promise. One way to create the perception of a favorable track
record is to include case histories and success stories in your copy.
Testimonials from satisfied customers are another technique for
convincing prospects that you can do what you say you can do.
You can also impress prospects by showing them a full or partial
list of your customers.
Share with readers any results your firm has achieved for an
individual customer or group of customers. IC Systems, for
example, impressed dentists by telling them that the company has
collected $20 million in past due bills over the past two years
alonea number that creates the perception of a service that works.
In addition to the benefits you offer, the products and services you
deliver that offer these benefits, and the results you have achieved,
prospective buyers will ask the question, "Who are you?" Here are
some examples of copy in which the vendor gives credentials
designed to make the consumer feel more comfortable in doing
business with them and choosing them over other suppliers
advertising similar products and services:
We guarantee the best technical service and support. I was a
compressor service technician at Ingersoll Rand, and in the past
twenty years have personally serviced more than 250 compressors at
more than eighty companies.
 For nearly 100 years, BOC Gases has provided innovative gas
technology solutions to meet process and production needs. We have
supplied more than 20,000 different gases and gas mixturesin purities
up to 99.99999 percentto 2 million customers worldwide.
Lion Technology is different. For nearly two decades, we have
dedicated ourselves 100 percent to training managers, engineers, and
others in environmental compliance-related subjects. Since 1989, our
firm has conducted more than 1,400 workshops nationwide on these
topics.
Credentials you can list in your copy include year founded, number
of years in business, number of employees, annual revenues,
number of
 Page 74
locations, number of units sold, patents and product innovations,
awards, commendations, publications, membership and
participation in professional societies, seals of approval, agency
ratings, independent survey results, media coverage, number of
customers, and in-house resources (financial, technological, and
human).
9. Give the Prospect a Mechanism for Responding
At minimum, this means an address and phone number where the
prospect can contact you for more information or to talk with you
about making a purchase. Other response mechanisms you can add
include:
Toll-free 800 and 888 numbers
Paid 900 numbers
Fax numbers (more and more prospects like to fax inquiries)
Reply cards
Order forms
Coupons
Surveys or questionnaires
E-mail address
Website location
You should emphasize and call attention to the address, phone
number, and other reply information rather than obscuring them, as
many general and corporate communications tend to do. This can
be accomplished using any of the following graphic devices:
Boxes (putting response information in a separate box)
Highlighting
Tinting or shading
Boldface or italic copy
Larger type
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Arrows, asterisks, dotted lines, sketches of telephones
Graphics pointing toward the response information
And instead of just listing the address and phone number below the
logo, add copy that encourages the reader to use them. For
example: ''For more information on any of the products described
in this catalog sheet, call (XXX) XXX-XXXX today. Or write to us
at the address below."
10. Make Each Marketing Document Self-Contained
Every marketing document should contain not only the contact
information but also your company name, a description of your
product or service, and copy that tells the reader what to do next
and how. Whenever possible, you should also describe any tangible
offers you are making, such as a free demonstration, consultation,
analysis, report, or estimate. Ideally, every marketing document
should contain this informationeven components of larger
promotions. This means in a direct mail package the contact
information and offer should appear not only in the letter and reply
card but also in the brochure, lift letter, and any other inserts. I
have frequently extracted sales letters from direct mail packages
for later reading and thrown away the rest of the package, only to
discover that the sender's company address is not on the letterhead
or in the body copy of the letter.
In the same way, if your literature is packaged as an information kit
consisting of an outer folder with material in the pockets, all
components should have your contact informationnot just the
brochure, but also the data sheets, article reprints, price list, even
the outer folder. Marketing materials become separated, so it is
important that each piece stand on its own as a direct response
communication.
11. Be Targeted
Successful direct marketing delivers specific messages to specific
audiences, not generic messages to mass audiences. It's better to
have many letters, ads, collateral pieces, and so on, each speaking
directly to the needs of a specific audience, than have one
"corporate" ad, one "capabilities brochure," and one "standard
letter" that attempts to be all
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things to all people. Chapter 4 presents the reasons why this is so as
well as strategies for targeting your communications.
12. Be Personal
Because it's targeted, direct marketing tends to speak on a more
personal level. It has a friendly "me-to-you" tone rather than a stiff
formal tone. My personal belief after writing copy full-time since
1979 is that, while tone certainly should be suitable for the
intended audience, it's better to lean toward being informal,
friendly, and conversational rather than formal and corporate.
In my opinion, the widely held belief that you have to write in an
ultra-dignified, upper-crust style when communicating to CEOs,
doctors, Ph.D.s, the wealthy, and other upscale audiences is largely
overstated. People universally have too little time and too much to
read. They want the message to be simple, direct, understandable,
to the point. I have never in more than eighteen years of being a
professional copywriter heard anyone complain that a piece of
copy was too understandable or too easy to read.
Using personal pronouns in copy (we, I, you) adds warmth and
personality to copy. I urge you to write in this natural,
conversational style. Can you overdo it? Of course. Copy that has
every other sentence beginning with and, has no paragraph longer
than one sentence, consists mainly of sentence fragments, or in
some other way sounds too slick, too much like "professional
copywriting," can cause skepticism and buyer resistance by
reminding prospects that they are "reading advertising." But
overall, it helps to make copy personal and to write me-to-you.
Readers like and respond to it.
Checklist of Direct Response Tips and Techniques
Throughout this book I will give you detailed advice on how to
increase response. There are complete chapters on increasing
response to print ads, direct mail, postcards, brochures, catalogs,
press releases, feature
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articles, websites, and audiovisual communications. But to get you
started right away, and for handy reference, I've abstracted these
chapters and distilled them into a reference list of quick ideas you
can use to boost response starting right away:
Sales Letters
Personalize the letter.
Use a reply card or similar response device.
Personalize the response device.
Target different versions of a letter to the needs and concerns of
specific audiences.
Encourage both phone and mail response.
Use subheads that communicate the key points at a glance.
Use short paragraphs and sentences, especially in the opening.
If you do not personalize, use a benefit-oriented headline.
If you do not personalize, use a salutation that the reader can
identify with.
Offer something tangible for the reader to send fora brochure,
catalog, etc.
Offer a meeting, demonstration, or appointment for those who want
to buy now.
Use a teaser on the outer envelope that arouses curiosity or
promises a benefit.
If you do not use a teaser, imprint the recipient's name and address
on the outer envelope so it looks like a personal letter.
Use a stamp or postage meter instead of an indicia.
Omit the company logo and name on the outer envelope and print
your return address in plain type.
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Make the reply card a different color than the letter (e.g., yellow,
light blue, pink) so it stands out when the envelope is opened.
Mail first class instead of third class.
Use a different color or different size envelope (if everyone else is
mailing 6-by-9-inch envelopes, use 9-by-12-inch).
Add an incentive, such as a bonus gift or free special report, for
prompt response.
Make the bonus gift no strings attached (they can keep it even if
they don't buy the product, attend the seminar, or agree to the initial
appointment).
Write a provocative lead that engages the reader's attention.
In your lead, talk about the prospect's needs, concerns, fears, and
problemsnot your product.
Talk directly to your reader.
In a long letter, make sure you sum up your proposition and ask for
response before you get through the first half of page one.
In a two-page or longer letter, consider summing up your offer or
message in a "Johnson Box" (a rectangular box above the
salutation containing brief copy).
Print the letter in two colors, with the signature in blue.
In a personalized letter, print each page on a separate sheet.
In a form letter, print on both sides of the page.
End each page in the middle of a sentence so the reader is forced to
go to the next page to finish the thought.
Write "more" or "over, please" at the bottom of each page to
instruct the reader to go on to the next page.
Prefer short paragraphs to long paragraphs.
Use underlining, asterisks, bullets, boldfacing, all caps, and
indenting to emphasize words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs
you want to call attention to.
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Do not overdo any of the above techniques or they will lose their
effectiveness.
If it's a choice between achieving a natural, conversational style
and being 100 percent grammatically correct, go for the natural,
conversational style.
Do not be afraid to repeat key sales points two or three times in the
same letter.
If there are a lot of supporting data or technical details, put it in a
separate insert sheet, brochure, or additional piece.
Gain the reader's attention by using specific numbers, facts,
figures, and statistics to make your case.
If your company is very well known and well respected, print the
letter on your regular letterhead with your logo and name
prominently displayed on page one.
If your company is not well known, put your name, logo, and
address on the last page below the signature and P.S. The first thing
the reader sees should be the headline or salutation, not your logo.
Direct Mail Packages
All the techniques described above for sales letters apply equally to
direct mail packages.
In business-to-business direct mail, do not put too many elements
in the direct mail package or it will be identified as "junk mail" by
secretaries and not be passed on to the recipient.
If you have a free offer, mention of this on the outer envelope can
make an effective teaser.
Inserts, brochures, and other materials in the direct mail package
should be printed on a single sheet of paper folded to form a
brochure, pamphlet, or what have you. They should not be saddle-
stitched.
The ideal business-to-business lead-generating direct mail package
seems to be a one- to two-page letter in a #10 envelope with
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a business reply card and possibly a slim-Jim brochure (8 1/2-by-
II-inch or 8 1/2-by-14-inch sheet of paper folded to form six or
eight panels).
The reply card should be separate rather than attached to the letter
or brochure.
When personalizing the letter, you may have a reply element that is
attached to the letter so you can computer-personalize the reply
form as well as the letter. Include a business reply envelope for
return of this detachable form.
Use a brochure when the product is not fully understood by the
prospect or is complex and you need to present more details than
can be comfortably covered in a one- or two-page letter.
Omit the brochure when the proposition or offer is simple and
easily understood.
Use the brochure when you need to establish credibility and
convince the prospect that the product, offer, proposition, or the
organization behind it is real, not fly-by-night.
Use the brochure when you need to illustrate or explain things
visually.
Set the letter in typewriter style or desktop-publishing style type.
Set the brochure in traditional type, such as Helvetica or Times
Roman.
A short, simple, business reply card is usually more effective than
an order form, questionnaire, or other long response device.
Break copy in the letter and brochure into short sections, each with
a selling, benefit-oriented subhead.
Use short sentences, words, and paragraphs throughout to make
your copy readable.
In direct mail, remember, ''The letter sells, the brochure tells."
Use testimonials in both the letter and the brochure.
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Information about the company or biographical information about
its founders, if it must be included, belongs in the brochure, not the
letter.
Self-Mailers
Two-color self-mailers generally outpull one-color mailers.
You can make a one-color printing job appear multicolored by
using black ink on colored stock, colored ink on colored stock, and
tints.
Making one panel or portion of the self-mailer a tear-off business
reply card increases response.
The fold attaching the reply card to the rest of the mailer should be
perforated.
Print a dashed black line along the perforation to simulate the look
of a coupon.
Use strong teaser copy on the front and back panels of the self-
mailer.
Write the inside of your self-mailer like a powerful ad or sales
brochure.
In 11-by-17-inch and larger self-mailers, break the copy up into
sections using boxes and borders.
In 11-by-17-inch and larger self-mailers, use numerous subheads
and bullets to make the copy easier to read and scan at a glance.
Use self-mailers to promote offers that cannot profitably be
marketed with a full-scale direct mail package.
Use self-mailers to reach a large universe your budget does not
allow you to reach with a traditional direct mail package.
Use self-mailers for offers that are familiar to the reader or are easy
to understand and do not require a lot of explanation.
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In an 11-by-17-inch mailer, consider adding an extra half-page flap
with a tear-off business reply card.
In a multipage or mini-catalog type self-mailer, a letter imprinted
on the inside front cover may increase response.
Do not cram too much information into your mailer or set the type
too small.
Use photos or other graphics to illustrate or dramatize your
message if appropriate.
Postcard Decks
If you want maximum inquiries, allow the reader to respond by
filling in name and address and returning the card without having
to do anything else (e.g., enclosing a check, adding a postage
stamp, or using an envelope).
When using a free offer to generate sales leads, make it really free.
Don't ask for $1 or some other nominal sum to cover handling as a
means of qualifying prospects; it doesn't really qualify, and it hurts
response tremendously.
Unless the cost of paying return postage is a significant factor to
you, use a business reply permit on your postcards.
If the offer is free, put the word free in the headline or subhead.
Show a picture of your catalog, booklet, or other free information.
Put a caption under the picture that says "yours free."
Add a telephone number at the bottom of the card for phone
response.
Add your website address.
Leave sufficient room for prospects to fill in their name and
address.
Make the offer simple and clear; avoid complex propositions in
postcard deck marketing.
 Page 83
Generally a postcard deck is good for distributing free catalogs,
literature, or demo diskettes, not as effective for direct sales.
Exceptions? Of course.
Postcard decks are ideal for testing offer A versus offer B or sales
message A versus sales message B.
Print Ads
Use a direct, straightforward headline rather than a cute or clever
headline.
Put quotation marks around the headline. This draws the reader's
eye to the ad.
Write the body copy like an informative article that leaves the
reader hungering for more information on the same topic.
Use a coupon.
Put a dashed border around the coupon and place the coupon in the
bottom right corner of the ad.
Run the ad on a right-hand page.
In a small ad, put a dashed border around the ad.
Use a toll-free number.
Use a bind-in reply card (a reply card bound into the magazine
opposite the ad).
Run the ad in publications known to generate high numbers of
leads (e.g., product tabloids) or orders (e.g., mail-order
publications).
Have a free offer of a booklet, report, brochure, analysis, or
something else the reader can send for.
Strees the free offer in your copy.
Show a picture of your free booklet, report, or kit.
Mention the free offer in the headline or subhead.
Use a reader service card number.
Put your toll-free phone number in large bold type at the bottom of
the ad.
 Page 84
Run your ad for as long as it continues to pull well. Some ads
actually generate more inquiries the longer they run.
When the response rate declines, it is time to test a new ad.
Brochures
Bind a tear-off business reply card into the brochure.
Have boxes the reader can check off to request more detailed
information on items mentioned in the brochure (e.g., in a general
brochure, you can have a reply card offering a more complete
brochure on each product mentioned).
In your closing copy, encourage the reader to use the reply card.
If you want prospects to supply you with information you can use
to quote a price for your product or analyze their need for your
service, include a questionnaire or spec sheet readers can fill out
and return to you.
The questionnaire or spec sheet should be printed on two sides of
an 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheet.
The sheet should be separate from the brochure, inserted in the
brochure, and printed on a different color stock than the brochure.
If you want to include an additional copy of the reply form as a
tear-off page in the brochure, fine.
Encourage the reader to fax the completed questionnaire to you.
Display your fax number in large bold type on the reply form.
Suggest a specific course of action and describe it in detail in the
closing copy of your brochure.
Tell readers what you will do next for them if they contact you, and
stress the benefits of this step or service.
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Write your brochure so that it answers most questions about the
product or service and gets prospects to the point where they are
ready to have a meeting or get a price quote.
Make it easy to find your address and phone number.
Include your E-mail address and website URL.
Add valuable information to the brochure to encourage prospects to
keep it as a reference.
Avoid using photographs that can date the piece (e.g., showing men
and women with out-of-date hairstyles).
Catalogs
Use a title that implies value. For example, call your industrial
catalog a reference guide, manual, or product guide, not a catalog.
Design an attractive front cover.
Put a price in the upper right corner of the front cover of your
catalog to create the impression that the book has value.
On the inside front page, put a personal letter from the owner or
company president explaining the high level of service you offer or
other benefits of doing business with you.
In a large catalog that will be referred to repeatedly, put a table of
contents on page 2 or 3.
Have a page, such as the inside back cover, that gives terms,
conditions, shipping instructions, and other details for ordering.
A bound-in order form usually increases response but may not be
necessary in industrial catalogs used primarily as reference guides
by purchasing agents. Test it.
Add how-to articles, technical information, or other information
that gives your catalog value as a reference and therefore prompts
the recipient to keep it longer.
Encourage orders by mail, phone, and fax.
 Page 86
Use a toll-free number for ordering.
Put your order phone number on every page or every other page.
The reader should instantly be able to find the phone number for
ordering no matter what page they're looking at.
Consider a ''frequent buyer's discount program" that gives the
customer volume discounts based on total dollar volume purchased
within a year.
Consider a "frequent buyer's credit" program where the customer
receives a credit good toward future purchases based on a
percentage of the total dollar amount of the current purchase.
Design reference tables, graphs, and other graphic devices that
make it easy for the customer to specify and order the correct
product.
Include cross-reference tables that make it easy for your customers
to see which of your products are replacement equivalents of
competing products they may now be using.
Make it easy for customers to establish a line of credit and buy
without paying in advance.
Include a toll-free number and encourage phone ordering for credit
card orders.
Accept MasterCard, Visa, and American Express cards.
Allow the customer to order at any time rather than during set
hours (use an answering service, answering machine, voice mail, or
800-number service bureau for accepting orders during non-
business hours).
Encourage customers to submit purchase orders by mail or fax.
Create a form customers can use to order if they do not want to use
(or don't have) their own requisition or purchase order forms.
Put the season or catalog number (e.g., Fall 1998) on the front
cover so customers with old catalogs will call to get the new
catalog.
 Page 87
Distribute your catalog free rather than charging for it.
If you charge a small fee for your catalog, rebate this with the first
order.
Consider creating versions of your catalog aimed at different
markets or groups of buyers.
If you have a large, all-purpose catalog, consider testing a mini-
catalog featuring only one line of related products and aimed at
people known to buy that type of product.
The appearance of the catalog (graphics, photos, paper stock,
design, printing quality) should be equivalent to other promotional
materials your prospects are accustomed to receiving. Do not make
it too expensive or too cheap.
Get competitive bids for the printing of the catalog. Lowering the
cost per catalog helps make more sales at less cost.
If you operate in a metropolitan area, get at least one or two bids
from out-of-town (or even out-of-state) printers.
Consider going to a slightly thinner paper stock. It probably won't
hurt response but will definitely save you money.
If printing cost is a major factor, you can save a lot of money by
printing your cover on glossy stock, as you usually do, but
converting all the inside pages to newsprint stock and printing them
in one or two colors.
Websites
Register a domain name that relates to your product or company
and is easy to remember (e.g., http://www.boc.com for BOC Gases).
Use the graphics on your web pages to demonstrate your product or
service (e.g., a dentist's website shows pictures of patients' teeth
before and after treatment to show the results achieved).
 Page 88
Strategically hyperlink your website to the websites of related
companies whose products, services, and activities complement
your own.
Put links between pages on your website so browsers can easily
find relevant material without going back to the home page and
checking the contents.
If you sell a low-priced product (less than $ 100), consider
accepting credit card orders directly on your website.
Make useful information available on your website, such as
downloadable product specifications or safety instructions, or on-
line calculators, price guides, and tables.
Offer an incentive, such as a free gift or special offer, to get people
to register on your website's enrollment page.
Require prospects who register to give you their address, phone
number, and fax number. Ask them qualifying questions, such as
the type of business they are in or their size or volume.
Ask them to indicate by checking a Yes or No box whether they
want to receive periodic information bulletins from you via E-mail.
All those who check Yes get quarterly or monthly promotional E-
mails from you.
Inquiry Fulfillment Materials
Do not mail literature without a strong, hard-sell cover letter.
Including a letter is an extremely effective tool for converting leads
to sales.
On the outer envelope, stamp in large red or black letters, "Here is
the information you requested."
Mail brochures flat in a 9-by-12-inch envelope rather than folding
them to fit a standard #10 business envelope.
If you have many brochures and other materials, consider creating
an attractive pocket folder for them.
 Page 89
Including an audiocassette tape, product sample, or other three-
dimensional enclosure makes your package more interesting than if
it just contains paper literature.
Type up favorable testimonials from ten to twenty clients or
customers, print them on one or two sides of a sheet of paper, and
include this as a separate flier in your inquiry fulfillment kit.
If you have many well-known customers, make a long list of the
most famous ones and put this on a separate sheet included with the
kit.
Include a questionnaire, survey, or other response device prospects
can fill in and mail back to you to order a product, request a price
quotation, or simply communicate their requirements to you.
Print this reply form on a brightly colored stock, such as yellow,
gold, or light blue.
Encourage prospects to fax the reply form back to you and put your
fax number in large bold type on it.
Make sure the brochures you send give prospects the information
they are likely to be seeking about your product.
If the brochures don't answer all questions, write out the questions
prospects are likely to ask. Then write an answer to each question
and reprint these questions and answers on a separate sheet, and
include this sheet with your inquiry fulfillment kit.
Recent reprints of favorable or informative articles written about
you or by you make excellent additions to the inquiry fulfillment
kit.
Audiocassettes of lectures by you or reprints of papers given by
you also can be included with the package. Videos, CD-ROMS, and
other multimedia presentations add a welcome third dimension to
an otherwise flat "paper package."
Make sure the inquiry fulfillment kit contains everything you
promised to send the prospects responding to your ad or mailer.
Don't forget to include any bonus premiums or special reports you
offered that are not normally included with fulfillment materials.
 Page 90
Many pieces of the kit can be photocopies, desktop published, or
inexpensively produced, including your client list, testimonials, and
question-and-answer sheet. But there should be at least one
brochure or other piece of literature that is somewhat more
expensively produced. This convinces the prospect that your
company is ''real."
In your inquiry fulfillment letter, spell out exactly what you are
offering and what you want the prospect to do next.
Make it as easy as possible for the prospect to respond.
Assure the prospect that there is no risk in responding, no cost, and
no obligation of any kind.
If no salesperson will call or visit the prospect, say so.
Make sure any response forms or devices are simple to follow, easy
to complete, and not too lengthy.
If your offer is limited, say so. Create a sense of urgency about why
the prospect should respond today, not tomorrow.
Consider designing a series of follow-up mailings to follow the
original inquiry fulfillment package. Sometimes this pays off,
sometimes not. You will only know by testing.
When mailing to prospects who work at home, consider using a
business card that is a refrigerator magnet.
If your service or product will be required by your prospect in the
future and at intervals rather than purchased immediately, consider
enclosing a business card in the form of a Rolodex card.
If your product or service is ordered only on an emergency basis,
consider enclosing a telephone sticker with your name, logo
address, and a short description of the product or service.
If you are selling professional or consulting services and have
written a book on the topic, consider including a copy of your book
with inquiry fulfillment packages sent to hot prospects who seem
eager and ready to buy.
 Page 91
Press Releases
Use a headline with strong reader interest.
Write a lead that reads like the lead of an interesting feature story.
Put useful information in the body of your release.
Mention that the information discussed in the release is available in
more detail in a booklet or report that can be obtained from you.
In the last paragraph, explain that readers can get a copy of the
booklet or report by calling or writing you.
Mention your free booklet or report in the lead or headline if you
can.
Write on a topic that is either controversial, deals with a "hot"
issue, is timely, or gives readers information they can use in their
business.
A two- or even three-page release with a lot of "meat" is better than
a short one- or two-paragraph release that only gives a summary of
the material.
The press release must be self-contained. Do not expect the editor
to write an article by interviewing you or taking copy from other
materials (articles, booklets, brochures) you send along with the
release.
Including a cover letter with your press release is unnecessary and
does not help convince editors to use it.
Press releases should be typed double-spaced on white paper.
If the release is more than one page, use a second sheet; do not type
on the back of the page.
The pages should be stapled together in the upper left corner.
 Page 92
If you have a well-known company whose activities automatically
constitute business news, use a special news release letterhead with
your name in large type at the top (e.g., "News from IBM").
If your company is not famous or newsworthy in and of itself, you
do not need special news release letterhead and can type your
releases on plain white paper.
Type on the release the name and phone number of someone in
your company the editor can contact for more information.
Always respond to calls from editors immediately because they are
on tight deadlines.
If you have more than one press release, mail them separately (one
per month for monthly magazines, one per week for daily or
weekly publications). Do not send them all together in a single
envelope.
The most interesting word to the business editor is new. Always try
to stress what is new in your press release (e.g., when announcing a
product upgrade, your headline is "New Release of Product XYZ
Now Available").
Columns/Articles
Try to get your articles or columns in the most widely read, most
well respected, or largest circulation business publications in your
field.
If you can't get into the best publications, any publication is still
good. The articles and columns have enormous value as reprints
that are not dependent on where they were originally published.
Encourage the editor to run a resource box instead of a regular
author's bio at the end of each article. A resource box is a box
containing your name, company name, address, phone number, fax
number, and a brief description of your product or service.
If the editor will not run a resource box but only the standard
"about the author" bio, make sure you get your company's city in
the description so readers interested in knowing more about
 Page 93
you can track down your phone number from information (e.g.,
"Bob Bly, an independent copywriter and consultant based in
Dumont, New Jersey, specializes in business-to-business direct
marketing").
If the editor will not run a resource box or pay you for the article,
ask them to give you free ad space in exchange for writing the
article. (The value of the ad space should be one or two times the
dollar amount normally paid for an article of the type and length
you are writing.)
The ad should appear in the same issue as your article, not in a
different issue, as many believe.
The ad should appear on the same page, the page opposite, or the
page immediately following your article. It should be as close to
the article as possible.
If the magazine is writing an article about you, you can often get
the editor to make it the cover story by promising and then
providing an attractive photo or other graphic for the front cover.
Getting a cover story invariably increases readership and response.
If you are writing an article for the magazine under your own
byline, write a brief article divided into short sections by numbers,
bullets, or subheads. These get higher readership than lengthy,
long-winded articles.
Use a title that promises useful ideas and quick reading (e.g., "Ten
Tips for Buying a Desktop Publishing System" is better than
"Fundamentals of Desktop Publishing").
If the editor did not include a resource box when the article was
published, add one when you make reprints.
Offer reprints of your "Ten Tips" type articles to prospects who
reply to your ads and mailings. Call them special reports or tip
sheets, not article reprints.
Mail reprints of articles to customers and prospects.
Write articles on subjects of strong interest to your potential
customers and prospects.
 Page 94
Write articles that position your company as the leader or you as
the expert.
Write articles that convince readers you are qualified to help them
solve their problems.
Plan a schedule or matrix of articles (topics and publications for
placement) just as you would plan a print advertising campaign.
Seminars, Speeches, Papers, and Presentations
Make sure that the content of the seminar is informative, not
promotional.
Present a solid program of information; keep the selling message
brief and present it only at the end.
If the seminar is primarily a product demonstration, first educate
the audience about the problem and the correct way to handle it;
then demonstrate how your product fulfills that specification.
At a self-sponsored seminar, arrange for attendees to sit down and
discuss their needs with salespeople (who are waiting patiently at
the back of the room) as soon as the presentation is completed.
At a public event, offer a handout free to anyone who asks. This
can be an article reprint, outline of your talk, the entire text of your
talk, or a booklet based on your talk. Make sure the handout has
your name, address, and phone number on it.
If you want to capture the names and addresses of people attending
your seminar, do not bring the hand-out with you. Instead, offer to
send it to people who give you their business card at the conclusion
of your talk.
Ask the seminar sponsor for a list of those who attended your
presentation and mail a follow-up letter immediately afterward
thanking them for coming and offering more information on your
product or service.
If you tape your seminar, send copies of the tape free to attendees
as a follow-up. Or, send a letter offering a free copy to any attendee
who is interested in your product or service.
 Page 95
Always distribute your handouts after you speak, not before. If you
do it before you speak, people will read the handout and ignore
your talk.
Bring an inexpensive gift (a sample of your product, for example).
After your talk, hold it up and offer it to the person who asks the
first question. This ensures that questions will be asked.
The best way to generate an enthusiastic response and potential
business from a seminar, speech, or lecture is to give a great talk,
packed with information and without a sales pitch.
Let others do your sales pitch for you. Write an introduction for the
person introducing you that tells who you are, the name of your
company, and what you do.
Have a small supply of brochures on hand for those who have an
immediate need to know more about your product or service.
If you have a low-priced product to sell (e.g., a book, video), have
a product table at the back of the room with a supply of the items
and encourage people to buy after the talk or at the break. Sales
increase dramatically when the product is physically available at
the talk versus giving people an order form to take home and mail
in.
Have people fill in and return to you an evaluation form they can
use to rate your presentation. At the end of the form have boxes
they can check if they are interested in receiving additional
information on your company, product, or service.
Promise an inexpensive surprise gift for those who complete and
hand in the evaluation form.
Company Newsletter or Magazine
In a large saddle-stitched multipage magazine, bind in a reply card
readers can tear out and return to request more information on
products and services discussed in the articles.
In a small four- to eight-page newsletter that is a self-mailer, turn
the address panel (where the mailing label is affixed to the back
page of the newsletter) into a reply form by adding boxes the
 Page 96
reader can check to request product information. Encourage the
reader to mail this page back or fax it.
At the end of each article put a ''for more information" paragraph in
italic type (e.g., For a free product brochure on the XYZ Tank Bottom
Value, call Rick Graycheck at (XXX) XXX-XXXX).
Run small articles of two or three paragraphs that merely describe
and offer materials the reader can send for (e.g., new brochures,
spec sheets, videotapes, catalogs). Box these articles or print them
on tint blocks to make them stand out.
On your reply form or panel, invite your readers to give their
opinion of the newsletter and submit suggestions for future articles.
Put in a quiz or puzzle related to your product and offer a prize to
anyone who solves it (prize to be sent along with information on
the product).
Use the newsletter to announce and build attendance at trade show
displays, seminars, demonstrations, and similar events.
Publish the newsletter on a regular schedule, not randomly.
Quarterly is ideal.
Profile a customer in each issue. Get the customer's approval of the
story before running it, of course.
Profile an employee.
Trade Shows
Create an inexpensive one-page flier about your product or product
line for distribution at the trade show.
Put a tear-off business reply card at the bottom of this flier. Put
boxes on the reply card the prospect can check off to request more
detailed literature on specific products, applications, or services
that the flier just touches on briefly.
Bring a small supply of your more complete literature packages to
give to prospects who have a serious interest and want immediate
information.
Page 97
 Page 98
Put a large goldfish bowl on a table with a sign encouraging people
to put their business cards into the bowl to qualify for a nice prize
to be awarded based on a random drawing held at your booth at the
conclusion of the show.
Give away a nice gift (a baseball cap, a bag of fresh popcorn, a hot
dog with mustard, a T-shirt) to people who stop by your booth and
give you their business card.
Send a pre-show mailing to prospects inviting them to your booth
at the show. Enclose a card they can redeem at the booth to receive
some sort of gift or premium item.
Show working models of your equipment or samples of your
products at the booth.
If possible, demonstrate the product in person or via video in your
booth.
If there is a software component to your product, have it running
on a live PC in the display.
 Page 99

4
Target Marketing
Are you looking for a simple way to increase response to your
marketing efforts? Something that doesn't require a lot of skill or
thought, isn't terribly sophisticated, but works virtually every time?
Target marketing is the answer.
This simple technique is one of the most overlooked and
underutilized in the world of business-to-business marketing.
Ninety-five percent of the marketers who could benefit from it
haven't bothered to take advantage of it. The other 5 percent use it
routinely to obtain superior marketing results at reduced marketing
cost.
Okay. Let's say you're interested in exploring target marketing as a
way to enhance your marketing program. I think I can guess your
first question. . . .
 Page 100

What Is Target Marketing?

Target marketing is the strategy of dividing your marketing into
distinct market segments, then tailoring different marketing
campaigns aimed at each of the segments. For example, instead of
just thinking of its market as ''businesses," a photocopier
manufacturer might target its marketing efforts at several distinct
submarkets within the business marketplace: home offices, small
businesses, large corporations, engineering firms and other
businesses that need to duplicate technical drawings, ad agencies
and other firms that need color copying capability, and so on.
In the same way, a company manufacturing air pollution control
equipment might sell to many different vertical markets: chemical
plants, pulp and paper plants, food processors, iron and steel mills,
and utilities.
Use of Target Marketing Is Growing
Business-to-business and direct response marketers have been
doing target marketing for years. But the use of target marketing
today is intensifying. Direct marketers, for example, are using such
tools as demographic overlays to divide large mailing lists into
categories and tailor promotions based on such market
characteristics as age, marital status, and even whether a prospect
has a credit card or enters sweepstakes.
Even Madison Avenue is getting into the act. Once, the giant
package goods manufacturers treated all markets much the same.
Now they're targeting specific markets, too. For example, most of
the major fast-food chains and soft drink producers have separate
campaigns targeted toward blacks, and other campaigns targeted
toward Hispanic consumers. Why? Because targeting works.
Benefits of Target Marketing
Target marketing offers two primary benefits:
1. It increases marketing results.
2. It decreases marketing costs.
 Page 101
Let's look at each advantage. But first, I must tell you about my
latest inventionthe ultimate direct mail package (you'll see how this
relates to the discussion of target marketing shortly).
The Ultimate Direct Mail Package
I have recently designed the ultimate direct mail packagethat is, a
mailing piece guaranteed to generate an almost 100 percent
response rate every time it is mailed. Let me describe it.
Are you familiar with those gimmicky greeting cards that play
music when they are opened? A microchip attached to the card
generates the musical notes. My ultimate direct mail package also
has a microchip. This microchip contains three basic components: a
computer, a database stored on a miniature optical disk, and a
telephatic transmitter/receiver.
The mailing presents, in print, only a brief capsule description of
the product or service being sold. The rest of the information is
contained on the disk database and delivered to the recipient via the
telepathic transmitter.
Here's how it works: The prospect gets the mailer and reads the
brief product description. Immediately he or she has a thought.
This might be an objection, a question, or a reason why the
prospect thinks our product isn't of interest. The telepathic unit
picks up this thought and communicates it to the computer. The
computer searches the database for the appropriate response, then
transmits this to the recipeint via the telepathic unit. So if the
prospect thinks, "I don't have time to read this right now," the
computer transmits the pre-scripted message that begins, "Let me
explain why it's important to consider our offer right now, even if
you think you're 'too busy' or it's 'just not a priority'. . . ." If the
prospect thinks, "I don't have the money right now; we can only
spend a few hundred dollars," the ultimate direct mail piece
responds, ''You can afford to get this product at a price that will
surprise youfor an initial payment of only a few hundred dollars."
Sound fantastic? Actually, this is the kind of package an
experienced direct marketer will try to write every time he or she
sits down to create copy. The reason that our current efforts fall
short of the mark and
 Page 102
generate only 1 or 2 percent response instead of 100 percent (as the
ultimate direct mail package would) is that we don't have the
telepathic capability to read our customers' minds and tell them
exactly what they need to hear to convince them to buy the product.
Because we're not telepathic, we never know exactly what the
prospect is thinking, and that's a major disadvantage we have to
live with. The best copywriters spend most of their professional
lives trying to think like the prospect thinks to understand why they
are interested in the product and then stress those attributes in the
copy, or figure out why they aren't interested and then answer those
objections in the copy.
And this is where target marketing helps. It's simple, really. If
you're writing a nontargeted promotion to a mass audience, you
really don't know who you're talking to. If you don't have a clear
idea of your potential customers, how can you get inside their mind
and understand what interests them (and what doesn't) about your
offer? You can't. When you try to communicate with everyone in a
single letter, mailing, or ad, you end up communicating with no
one.
Targeting solves that problem. Narrow your focus, write to a
specific audience, and you can address people's specific needs,
concerns, and questions. Targeting helps you get inside the minds
of your prospects. If you're writing to computer programmers to
sell them a subscription to a technical magazine, it's true you can't
write separate letters to all programmers based on interviews with
them. But by speaking to only a few programmers, you can get a
good handle on how they think, what interests them, and how you
must approach them in your letter to get them to subscribe.
Here's another example. A major software firm was interested in
doing an advertising and marketing communications campaign for
its mainframe software product. The ad agency they approached
recommended targeted campaigns to each industry segment served;
banks, hospitals, manufacturers, and so on. Each and campaign
would focus on specific software systems sold to those market
segments, stressing the business benefits delivered by the software
to those types of companies. The client objected, not wanting to
create so many ads and brochures, and insisted on a single ad
campaign for all products and markets. But how can you talk to a
banker and to a hospital administrator in the same
 Page 103
ad or brochure and say something meaningful to both? You can't.
As the ad agency president explained to the client, "If we try to
reach everyone with one message, all it can be is something
meaningless like, 'The leader in mainframe software.'" The client
did not accept this argument, and the agency did not win the
account, which is fortunate since the campaign the client insisted
on would not have worked.
How Targeting Saves Money
You have just seen how targeting increases the effectiveness of
marketing communications and generates better resultsnamely, by
allowing you to make your message more reader-oriented and
prospect-focused.
But how does target marketing reduce marketing costs? Simple. By
dividing the great universe of business prospects into small, easily
identifiable market segments, those of us on a limited budget can
do smaller "mini-campaigns" concentrated on just one or two or a
few of these market segments. For most businesses, this is the only
marketing that is affordable; only the Fortune 500 and major
packaged goods manufacturers can afford mass advertising in
television, magazines, and newspapers.
Targeting saves money because:
It reduces the size of the audience you must reach.
It increases the effectiveness and impact of each communication,
eliminating the need for an expensive, mass-repetition campaign.
It lowers your mailing costs. You have fewer names to mail to,
which means lower list rental costs, lower postage costs, and lower
printing and production costs.
It reduces advertising costs. Although you may have to create more
ads, you run them in only a few specialty publications in the target
industry, rather than hundreds of general interest magazines or
newspapers. There are fewer publications on your media schedule,
and, because they are specialized trade publications, the cost of the
ad space is low.
It reduces your telemarketing sales costs. This is because there are
fewer prospects to call.
 Page 104

Thirteen Ways to Target Your Marketing Campaign

You can target your market in any of several ways (or a
combination of these).
1. Industry
You can target by industry, specifying industry segments by name
or by SIC (Standard Industrial Code). The Standard Industrial
Classification system uses a series of eight digit codes to organize
U.S. businesses into 15,000 categories and subcategories. The
definitive reference work to SIC is Dun & Bradstreet's SIC 2+2
Standard Industrial Classification Manual (Dun & Bradstreet
Business Market Solutions, 800-624-5669 or 800-222-3621). From
commercially available databases containing some ten million
companies compiled from the Yellow Pages, you can select mailing
lists by SIC code.
Here is an example of targeting by industry. A client of mine who
sells diaphragm pumps, asked me to write two different brochures
describing the same product. Why two different brochures?
Because the users in different markets were interested in different
performance features. Buyers in the chemical industry were
interested primarily in corrosion resistance; buyers in the
pharmaceutical industry were more concerned with purity and
cleanliness. Brochures to the different markets stressed these
different themes. The advantage of doing this? Prospects respond
better because the brochure they receive talks about what is of
interest to them.
2. Size of Company
Your market can be segmented according to size of company.
Many commercially available mailing lists allow you to select
names by size of company based on either annual sales or number
of employees.
Concerning size, I see American business divided into three basic
markets: small business, middle-sized companies, and Fortune 500.
How you define small, medium, and large for your marketing
purposes is really up to you. But here's how I think of it:
 Page 105
Small companies are generally privately owned, usually family-run
businesses, with anywhere from one or two employees to thirty,
forty, maybe fifty employees. For a manufacturer, this means sales
less than $10 million; for a service firm, sales less than $2 million.
The small company is usually run by an owner who keeps a tight
rein over all aspects of the business. A recent article indicated that
small business owners usually are much more aware of costs than
are their corporate counterparts, probably because they view the
money as coming out of their own pocket. Entrepreneurs are
skeptical, pressed for time, not terribly interested in technical
details, bottom-line oriented, and cost-conscious.
Home-based businesses are a distinct submarket within the small
business market. Many computer, fax, copier, telephone, furniture,
and office supply companies are aggressively targeting this market
segment because of the rising popularity of working at home. The
disadvantage in targeting this market, however, is that home-based
businesspeople are usually frugal, on a limited budget, and rarely
offer opportunity for repeat business or volume sales. They tend to
buy only one of everything, and that only after much deliberation.
They also tend to require a lot of after-sale support and service.
The second market segment is medium-sized companies from
several dozen to several hundred or more employees, with sales
usually more than $10 million if a manufacturer (or more than $2
to 3 million if a service provider) but less than $100 million. Your
prospect here is probably not the owner but may very well report to
the owner. Some have a lot of autonomy and authority; others have
to check with the boss to spend $50 on office supplies. This market
segment is difficult to put neatly into a single category because it is
so big. There's a lot of difference, for example, between a firm with
$10 million in sales and one with $90 million in sales.
Large corporations make up the third segment of the market.
Typically, these include the Fortune 500 and firms of similar size:
big companies with thousands of employees and annual sales in the
hundreds of millions of dollars. Typically, managers in these firms
are part of a chain of authority and must consult with others in their
company to make a purchase decision of any consequence.
Executives at these big firms use secretaries and mail rooms to
screen mail, and so it is more difficult to reach them.
Personalization of the outer envelopemaking it look personal
instead of like direct mailis very effective here.
 Page 106
Prospects at big corporations frequently are as concerned with
making an acceptable buying decision (one that pleases the
immediate supervisor or top management committee) as they are
with bottom-line results. Many are risk-adverse.
3. Location
Some business-to-business marketers target geographically; others
do not. Most of my manufacturing clients, for example, sell to
customers across the country, and geography does not affect their
marketing efforts. Distributors, on the other hand, might market
only in their immediate and surrounding states because they can
offer delivery that is both fast and economical only to prospects
who are nearby.
Many companies selling professional, consulting, and technical
services to businesses are often similarly restricted to serving
markets within the immediate geographic area of their headquarters
or branch offices. Companies that sell to businesses from retail
outlets (value-added resellers of computer systems, for example)
also serve a market within driving distance of the shop or store, as
do firms that offer onsite repair services.
Even some companies that sell products may do target marketing
based on location. One of my clients, a metals firm, finds that
marketing efforts do better in some states than others, and he
deletes the poorer states when renting mailing lists.
In today's global marketplace, many U.S. firms are looking to
expand into overseas markets. Most certainly, a separate
international campaign will be developed; larger, more
sophisticated marketers may have separate campaigns aimed at
different regions (Europe versus Asia) or even specific countries.
4. Job Function or Title of Prospect within the Company
Perhaps the most common means of targeting business-to-business
prospects is by job title. Direct mail, for example, can be sent only
to those who are responsible for buying, recommending, or
specifying
 Page 107
your type of product or service, eliminating the waste of mailings
sent to people not involved with your product or its purchase.
The most effective direct marketing often targets multiple buying
influences in the same company, tailoring the message to the needs
and concerns of each prospect as indicated by his or her job title or
function. For instance, we would stress ''quick return on
investment" when talking to the chief financial officer, but "high
reliability and easy maintenance" when talking to the plant
manager.
If you do not know the titles of the people likely to be interested in
your proposition, try addressing them by job function. In a mailing
for an electronic component distributor, we used the outer envelope
teaser, "Attention: Electronic Component Buyer," because we
could not get mailing labels with the titles of people who buy
electronic components.
5. Application or Use of Your Product
You can target your marketing efforts based on how the prospect
uses your product. A good example are the pocket planners, daily
calendars, time management systems, and other pocket schedulers
and diaries sold to businesses.
Some manufacturers sell them to be used personally by the buyer.
Their catalogs and mailings go into elaborate detail about how the
time management systems work, how they save you time, make
your life more efficient, and so on.
Other manufacturers market these items as gifts to be bought by
businesses and given to customers, prospects, and colleagues.
When selling these same items as a gift, rather than for personal
use, copy is much shorter and doesn't go into detail about how the
systems work. Instead, it stresses the high value, elegant look,
leather cover, personal imprint, and other aspects that make the
books and diaries an appealing gift item.
6. Channels of Distribution
You can target different promotions aimed at getting response from
different people in the distribution channel: end users or customers,
 Page 108
distributors, agents, resellers, wholesalers, agents, reps, OEMs
(original equipment manufacturers), VARs (value added resellers),
stores, or catalog merchants.
Promotions aimed at end users or customers naturally stress the
benefits of using the product, while promotions aimed at the
distribution channel tend to stress how much money or profit the
distributor can make by carrying the item and selling it
aggressively.
Marketers sometimes use the term push to describe marketing to
the distribution channel and pull to describe marketing to the end
user or customer. This is because promotion to dealers is aimed at
pushing the product on them and getting them to push it onto their
customers, while marketing to customers creates demand that pulls
the product through the distribution chain from manufacturer to
distributor to end user.
Is it better to concentrate your promotional dollars toward end
users or the distribution channel? It depends on the market. If
customers tend to buy the product directly from the manufacturer,
and distribution channels account for only a small percentage of
sales, then naturally you concentrate your promotional dollars on
the end user.
In other markets, distribution channels are important. Take books,
for example. If bookstores don't buy a particular book from a
particular publisher and put it on the shelves, it has little chance of
selling. And with 50,000 new books published each year, most get
little or no shelf space in bookstores. So selling the distribution
channel is essential.
A similar situation exists in supermarkets. With too many products
competing for limited shelf space, many packaged goods
manufacturers actually pay the supermarket a fee to stock and
display their products.
It's the same with many PC software packages. There are thousands
of software packages on the market, yet most computer stores have
room on the shelves for only a dozen titles. If they don't carry
yours, you either have low sales or must make sales through other
channels, such as catalogs, space ads, or direct mail.
How do you overcome the challenge of getting distributors to carry
your item? At first you might think heavy marketing to the
distribution chain is the answer. But let's say you do this, and the
bookstores carry your book. Readers might see it and snap it up.
But perhaps they've never heard of it, so they walk right by it. With
no demand from the end user, the title will quickly be pulled.
 Page 109
Often, creating a heavy customer demand is effective in getting the
distribution channel to buy your product. After all, if your book
gets rave reviews and dozens of people ask for it every hour, the
bookstore will naturally want to order many copies from you.
For products where the distribution channel is important, then, you
will probably target both the customer and the distribution chain. In
most cases, the bulk of your effort will go toward end-user
marketing, with a much smaller portion toward dealer and
distributor promotion. Exceptions? Of course.
7. Affinity Groups
An affinity group is a group of prospects with similar interests.
These might include classical music buffs, computer hackers,
bodybuilders and "health nuts," and other people who vigorously
and enthusiastically pursue special hobbies, interests, or activities.
When you market a product that appeals to their common interest,
you get much higher results than with mass-marketing the same
product to the general population because the affinity group has a
demonstrated interest in your product category or in the benefits
your product provides.
A good example might be computer enthusiasts who use Prodigy,
Dialog, CompuServe, America Online, the Internet, electronic
bulletin boards, and other on-line computer services. If you did a
promotion for a bulletin board or other on-line electronic
information or communications service and targeted the general
population of computer users, you might be unsuccessful not
because your service or promotion is bad, but because the average
computer user isn't "into" on-line communication, doesn't actively
use a modem, and is intimidated by the whole idea. On the other
hand, if you could target your promotion to existing users of such
services, selling them an additional serviceyoursmight be easier
because you'd have to sell the service only, not the whole concept
of on-line communication or buying a modem.
This is a good example of marketing made more efficient through
targeting. We know it's always easier to "preach to the converted."
That is, it makes more sense to advertise your steaks to beef lovers
rather than trying to convince vegetarians that meat is good for
them. Targeting to an affinity group ensures that your audience is
already converted before you start preaching to them.
 Page 110
8. Media
You can sometimes achieve great success by targeting your copy to
readers of specific business publications, members of trade or
professional organizations, or specific mailing lists. For instance, I
occasionally use direct mail to get new clients for my copywriting
and marketing consultation services. Since I specialize in business-
to-business, the list of BMA (Business Marketing Association)
members has proven to be the best list for me. My standard letter is
a form letter with the salutation "Dear Marketing Professional."
However, I find I get slightly better results with the BMA list by
changing the salutation to "Dear Fellow BMA Member." The
identification with their membership (''Dear Fellow BMA Member") gets
their attention. The use of ''Fellow Member" ("Dear Fellow BMA
Member") shows that I am a part of their "crowd."
This approach can work easily in direct mail and print ads. In direct
mail, for example, you can easily target a salutation based on
membership ("Dear IEEE Member"), publications read ("Dear
Spectrum Subscriber"), or trade show attendance ("Dear Chem
Show Attendee"). You can tailor a substantial portion of your copy
to the reader's profession, interests, or professional activities based
on knowledge of the publication or mailing list, or you can make
only minor alterations to your basic copy, as I did with the letter to
BMA members.

You can also target to readers of a specific magazine in your space

ad copy. For instance, if you're advertising only in magazines read
by pharmaceutical manufacturers, put a small kicker or "eyebrow"
line in bold copy above the main headline and make it read:
"Attention: Pharmaceutical Manufacturers." You might argue that
this is totally unnecessary; if all the people reading the magazine
are pharmaceutical manufacturers, who else could the ad be for?
But the fact is, it works, because prospects read the kicker and are
convinced that the ad is written specifically for them and will
address the unique concerns they have as pharmaceutical
manufacturers. You gain an enormous advantage over other
advertisers, most of whom just send their generic or standard
product ad to vertical-market publications, with no tailoring or
slanting toward the particular audience reading the publication.
Running a free offer in your ad in the New Jersey Business
 Page 111
Journal? Try this headline: "A special free offer . . . for New Jersey
Business Journal readers only."
In fact, the small- to medium-sized business-to-business marketer
can gain a significant advantage over larger competitors through
use of this technique. How? Smaller firms, in my experience, are
more flexible about doing "special" promotions to smaller target
markets, perhaps because they don't have the budget to compete
with the big corporations on a mass-marketing basis. Large
corporations, by comparison, are often committed to a year-long
advertising plan that does not easily accommodate special requests
for niche advertising. Also, many advertising managers at large
corporations think such specialized advertising is not worthwhile,
or else it is not "in the budget."
So targeting your ad or mailing to the specific publication or
mailing list is one way to increase its attention-getting and selling
power.
9. Adherence to Certain Standards, Policies, or Rules
Another way to segment the market is by standards, protocols,
policies, or rulesthat is, to target companies that must comply with
certain regulations or follow specific guidelines or procedures,
usually dictated by technology, industry standards, or regulatory
bodies.
Example: an industrial equipment manufacturer designed a valve
that was excellent at preventing leakage to the atmosphere. This
was of critical importance in chemical plants, and less so in other
process applications. Therefore, an ad aimed at chemical engineers
stressed how the product ensured compliance with EPA standards for
controlling "fugitive emissions." This was not the primary feature
stressed in ads to pharmaceutical manufacturing, biotechnology,
wastewater treatment, and other industry segments.
If complying with a certain federal regulation is of extreme
importance to a certain group of prospects, you can send a mailing
to those prospects stressing how your product or service helps them
comply with that regulation.
If concerns of interoperability among equipment require a certain
segment of the market to buy equipment that adheres to certain
standards of compatibility, you can send a mailing to those
companies
 Page 112
stressing how your product is designed to conform to those
standards, or how its "open architecture" ensures conformance to
current and future standards.
10. Users of Specific Devices, Products, Machines, Systems, or
Technologies
This is a simple, sensible strategy. Its premise: if you're selling fax
paper, you'll do a lot better selling to people who own fax machines
than to those who don't.
You might say, "You'd have to be an idiot to do otherwise," but
people do this every day. For instance, a client recently asked my
advice on how to select mailing lists for a promotion offering a
piece of PC software that does engineering calculations. Which
lists would you choose?
Your first recommendation might be lists of members of the major
engineering societies, such as the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers or the American Society for Civil Engineers. But wait a
minute. To sell software, you want to reach people who own and
use personal computers, and not all engineers do. (Some, for
example, use workstations that can't run software written for the IBM
PC or Apple Macintosh.) So when selling software, a basic rule is
to target (or at least, mail to) people who own the hardware that can
run your program.
In some cases, perhaps your product works exceedingly well in
tandem with another product or system. You could then do a
mailing to owners or prospective buyers of the system, stressing
the compatibility and advantages of using your product with that
system. If you could make an arrangement with the manufacturer
of the primary system to have them market and sell your product as
an add-on at the time of initial sale, this would be even more
effective.
11. Buying Habits
Although this is not a major concern in business-to-business, there
is evidence that you can increase response by tailoring your
marketing efforts to fit the buying habits or patterns of the target
prospects.
In consumer direct marketing, for example, results show that
mailings using a sweepstakes do best when mailed to lists of
people who
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have a previously responded to sweepstakes mailings. Apparently,
these people enjoy sweepstakes and will go through the trouble of
entering, more so than the general population that contains a
number of people who (like me) do not have patience for
sweepstakes and do not respond to sweepstakes mailings. It also
makes sense to stress that you accept payment by credit card when
mailing to a group of known credit card holders.
While this strategy has admittedly limited applicability in business
marketing, perhaps you can make it work for you. For example, if
you find that 90 percent of orders from your industrial catalog
come through telephone rather than letter or order form, you might
get rid of the order form and put more graphic emphasis on your
phone number throughout the catalog. On the other hand, if a
significant number of people fill out and fax the order form, you
should retain the order form but redesign it so that you emphasize
fax rather than mail-in response.
12. Behavioral Habits
This is similar to targeting affinity groups, but it is perhaps more
subtle. Targeting behavioral habits means you target prospects
whose behavior would identify them as the most likely candidates
to respond to your offer.
As I write this, a client called to ask me advice about marketing a
series of informational audiocassettessomething I have done many,
many times in the past. One of his major concerns was, "Can we
sell this to anybody, or will it just appeal to those who are already
sold on the idea of listening to audiocassettes?" A good question!
Although the information contained in the cassettes has wide
appeal to a large business audience, he will have his best chance of
success with the mailing list of SyberVision, Nightingale-Conant,
or other response lists of people who buy informational
audiocassettes through direct response. Again, it's a case of
"preaching to the converted." Selling a prospect on buying your
specific audiocassette series is tough enough; to have to also sell
that prospect on why he or she should be listening to audiocassettes
in the first place makes it a doubly hard sell.
My recommendation in this case? Spend the bulk of your money
testing lists of proven audiocassette buyers. Test a few other mail
response business lists, but cautiously and in small quantities.
While I won't
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know the results of the test for several months, I expect that the
promotion will be most profitable when sent to those whose
behavioral habits (i.e., audiocassette listeners) indicate a
predisposition to buy the type of product being advertised.
13. Other Demographic and Psychographic Characteristics of the
Prospects
Consumer direct marketing frequently targets prospects by such
demographic and psychographic characteristics as age, income,
marital status, family status, zip code, sex, and so on. While these
factors don't usually come into play in targeting a business-to-
business direct marketing program, there are times they may be
helpful. For instance, if you created an audiocassette program that
told corporate executives how to benefit from the early retirement
packages now being widely offered to reduce the size of corporate
payrolls, the headline of your ad or teaser on your envelope might
target by age, reading "An Important Message for Executives Age
45 and Over." Managers in their twenties and thirties, of course,
would not receive early retirement offers and would therefore not
be prospects for buying the cassette course.
The Targeting Decision
Deciding how to divide your total marketing effort and expenditure
among various target marketswhat the markets should be, how
many different target markets to address, how much time and effort
to spend on each, which markets to ignoreis one of the most
important and difficult decisions any marketing manager has to
make.
Should you target? How broad or narrow should your focus be?
Which markets are primary? Secondary? Here are some questions
and answers you might find useful in working through this difficult
issue in your own marketing plan.
Does Your Product or Service Lend Itself to Targeting?
In my experience, many business-to-business products and services
lend themselves to a targeted approach, but there are some that
don't.
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An example of a business-to-business service that benefits from
targeting? Transportation shipping, warehousing, freight
forwarding, and so forth. One client of mine, a marketing genius,
has dramatically increased the sales of his air freight forwarding
business by targeting specific market segments and establishing
himself as the transportation expert in those niches. For example,
he recently formed a subsidiary that handles nothing but medical
shipments after discovering that medical clients have specialized
needs that are inadequately handled by general shipping and
courier services.
An example of a product that did not lend itself to target
marketing? A company in my area of northern New Jersey sells a
software utility for improving the performance of mainframe
computers. It does the same thing on every computer, it's a function
every data processing manager in every company would want, and
the desire for this functionality doesn't vary based on size of
company, type of computer, or industry. Therefore, niche marketing
does not make sense, and it is advertised in general-interest
computer magazines.
Take a look at your product or service. Does it lend itself to
targeting by size of prospect company, industry, SIC, or any of the
other thirteen characteristics discussed in this chapter? If so, great.
If not, perhaps target marketing is not for you.
Do Clear, Distinct Targets Emerge?
As your business progresses, certain markets may emerge as
"naturals." They are attractive, lucrative, have a strong need for
your product, can benefit from your service, and are a good "fit"
for your company. These become the primary markets you target.
On the other hand, perhaps no distinct vertical market opportunities
emerge, or no single market is clearly the right one to pursue. In
this case, you must think through whether specific markets can be
logically targeted, based on a combination of common sense and
experience supplemented by market research.
One excellent resource for market research when targeting vertical
market segments or industries is FINDEX (Cambridge Information
Group, 7200 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814, 301-961-
6750). This book is a directory listing of commercially available
market research reports and surveys, organized by industry. You
just look up your target
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market, read the descriptions of the reports, and call to get more
details or order the material. Another excellent guide to published
market research studies is The Information Catalog (Find/SVP, 625
Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10011, 800-346-3005).
Are There Trade Shows, Mailing Lists, Publications, Associations,
and Other Media Targeted to These Markets?
If there are no specialized mailing lists, associations, directories,
newsletters, or magazines covering a vertical market or industry
segment, you probably will have to give up the idea of targeting a
distinct market. After all, if there is no mailing list or directory of
these prospects, no magazines they read, or no associations they
belong to, how will you reach them? You can't. So for target
marketing to be successful, targeted media must exist.
How can you check these resources? A good guide to mailing lists
is the Direct Mail Encyclopedia (available free of charge from
Edith Roman Associates, 253 W. 35th Street, 16th floor, New York,
NY 10001, 800-223-2194). This catalog contains data on thousands
of commercially available mailing lists, organized by category.
For information on specialized business and professional
associations, consult The Encyclopedia of Associations (available
in your local library or from Gale Research, P.O. Box 33477,
Detroit, MI 48232-9852, 800-877-4253.
For information on magazines and other specialized publications,
organized by industry, check with the Standard Rate and Data
Service (Macmillan Publishing, 3004 Glenview Road, Wilmette, IL
60091, 847-256-6067). They also publish a comprehensive
directory of mailing lists.
Does Your Product or Service Fill a Need in this Particular Niche?
Just because a particular vertical matters looks attractive to you
doesn't mean you look attractive to the marketplace. If you are
going to succeed with target marketing, you must offer something
these prospects want
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something they can't get from other vendors. Your product or
service must address a need that is currently unfulfilled or else
perform better than other products or services they are using now
or can buy elsewhere.
Does some attribute or feature of your product or service make it
especially well suited for a particular niche market? Then you have
a good chance of succeeding in that market. On the other hand, if
there's no special reason why your product or service is suited to
this market, you either have to change the product or service or at
least create the perception that it was especially designed with the
market's needs in mind. What works best is a combination of the
two techniques: tailoring the product or service to the needs of the
market, coupled with a promotional campaign that establishes you
as a specialist in serving these unique needs.
Do You Have Credentials or Credibility in These Markets?
I know of several software vendors who had great products running
on specific hardware platforms who thought they could expand
their sales by migrating these proven winners to other platforms.
But when they did so, they found it wasn't as easy as they thought
it would be. Why? Because they had no reputation or credibility in
these new markets. They would say, "Our software is proven in
30,000 IBM installations!" The prospects would reply, "Yes, but
we're a DEC shop. Have you got anything running on a VAX?" Not
having these reference installations made it slow-going expanding
into the DEC marketplace.
Do you have credentials or credibility in the marketplace you want
to target? Even a small amount of prior experience, or a limited
presence, can be made to seem impressive and help make prospects
comfortable with you as a vendor.
But if you haven't served this market before, and they don't know
you, you have to realize that extending into the market will be
much tougher for you. Print advertising can help overcome this and
establish a presence if you can afford large ads and a heavy
schedule. Otherwise, the best technique for gaining quick visibility
in new markets is a combination of an aggressive but low-cost
public relations campaign combined with net-
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working, participation in major trade associations and professional
societies, and trade show exhibits at the industry's major events.
Another good strategy for gaining credibility fast is a name change.
This is usually done by establishing a division or subsidiary with a
name indicating experience and specialization in a particular
market. For instance, would a hospital looking for a collection
agency be more likely to hire Retrieval Masters Creditors Bureau
(RMCB) or American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA)? The latter,
obviously. That's why RMCB's owner formed AMCA as a separate
company when he decided to aggressively pursue the medical
collections field.
What's Your Budget?
Your budget is another factor in determining whether you will do
mass marketing or niche marketing. Actually, only the largest
Fortune 500 corporations and other giants can afford mass
advertising. Small- and medium-sized companies, having to
compete with these giants on a fraction of the marketing budget, do
well by avoiding mass marketing and instead concentrating on
niche markets that the larger companies ignore.
A finite budget must be divided in some fashion among a finite
number of target markets. If you determine that a target marketing
campaign costs you $100,000 a year, and your ad budget is
$500,000, then you can afford to target five niche markets,
maximum. You might, however, choose to spend $200,000 on your
primary target market and $100,000 each on three secondary
markets. It's entirely up to you, but that's the kind of decision you'll
have to make.
What are Your Resources?
Budget is one constraint on marketing activities; another is
resourcesusually staff and time. Do you have the time or staff to
manage five ongoing campaigns?
Your own resources determine how "thin" you can spread yourself.
With a large staff, assistant advertising managers can each take
charge of a different vertical market. If staff is limited, you may
decide it's better to concentrate your energies on a smaller number
of niche markets.
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Does it Work?
Target marketing usually works, but the key question is: Will it
work for you? Set objectives, measure results, and then decide.
Often you find that a market segment you thought would be
profitable is not, and so you switch to a different segment.
For instance, you're not making money installing turnkey computer
systems for doctor's offices, but you realize the same software
could work for group practices, which buy more terminals and
larger systems for a higher price tag. So you switch your focus and
become successful.
Target marketing almost always works, to some degree. The
question is whether the incremental improvement in marketing
results it generates is worth the extra time, effort, and expense of
maintaining an ongoing marketing campaign aimed at that specific
audience. If yes, keep going, make your money, and look to
duplicate your success in similar or different markets. If not,
regroup. See if the same campaign can work on a related market
segment, or consider switching to a different market altogether.
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5
Soft Offers
''YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON $10 million.''
"The GREATEST SPORTS BLOOPERS VIDEOyours FREE with
your paid subscription to Sports Illustrated."
"Affix the token to the reply card for your FREE sample issue."
"Buy oneget one free."
"FREE tote bag when you become a member."
Consumer direct marketers rely heavily on finding and phrasing the
proper offer to wake up bored consumers, get them to take notice,
and persuade them to respond to the marketers' ads and mailings.
Business-to-business marketers have traditionally ignored offers,
not considering them important. The typical "industrial ad," for
example, instructs readers to circle the reply card number or
telephone for "more information"nothing more specific than that is
offered. Most corporate advertising ends with smart-sounding copy
that's totally vague about what you are supposed to think, feel, or
do about the adthe offer is completely absent.
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This is a mistake. The offer is as critical to business-to-business
direct marketing as it is to traditional consumer direct marketing.
To get maximum response from your marketing communications,
you must realize the following:
The offer is of utmost importance to the success of any direct
marketing piece or campaign.
The strategic planning, selection, and testing of offers can make or
break a campaign, regardless of how well designed or well written
the piece is. As a rule, the more valuable and risk-free the offer
seems to the reader, the better your response.
The presentation of the offerthe copy used to describe it, the
graphics, the emphasis it receivesis also of critical importance. As a
rule, the more you emphasize and stress the offer in copy and
graphics, the higher your response rate.
The clearer and more understandable your offer, the better your
response. The lack of a clear, distinct offer can significantly
depress response.
This chapter explains what an offer is, lists the different types of
offers you can use, and tells how to construct "free booklet" and
other "soft" offers that maximize response to business-to-business
direct marketing. Chapter 6 will focus on how to do the same for
discount, 2-for-1, trial, free evaluation, and other "hard" offers.
What Is an Offer?
I define the offer as follows:
What your prospects get when they respond to your ad or mailing,
 combined with what they have to do to get it.
Note that the offer has two components:
1. What the prospect gets
2. What the prospect has to do to get it
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The simplest, most popular offer in business-to-business marketing
is probably the offer of a brochure describing the product or
service. In direct mail, this typically reads: "For a free brochure on
the Widget 2000, complete and mail the enclosed reply card today."
What the prospects get is a brochure describing your product. What
they have to do to get it is fill in and mail a reply card.
This offer can and does work for many, many products and
services. However, in many cases, you can come up with a much
more attractive offerone that will get many more people to be
interested in your proposition and respond to your ad or mailing.
Chapters 5 and 6 will show you how to do this.

The Four Basic Types of Offers

There are four fundamentally different types of offers: hard, soft,
negative, and deferred. In this section, I'll describe them and show
you how and when to use each. In the examples, I'll phrase the
offers as they might be used in a typical business-to-business direct
mail package; however, these can work for radio, print ads, PR, and
in many other formats.
Offer #1: The Soft Offer
My definition of a soft offer:
An offer in which prospects request some type of printed material that
is mailed or shipped to them, and make this request using a reply card
or other response mechanism that does not require face-to-face or
other personal communication between the prospects and the seller.
The important thing to note about the soft offer is that it's the most
painless, risk-free way for the prospect to get in touch with you and
say, "I may be interestedtell me more" without feeling sales
pressure of any kind. The typical soft offer in a direct mail letter
reads as follows: "If you're interested in learning more about what
Product X can do for you, just complete and mail the enclosed
reply card for a free brochure." Think about what happens: The
prospect checks off a box on a reply card and mails it to you. You
mail the requested literature back. The
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prospect has expressed interest, responded, and received
information with no personal contact between you.
The soft offer appeals to those prospects who do not have an
immediate need and are "just looking," or to those who have an
immediate need but want to gather preliminary information without
speaking to your agents or sales reps. The soft offer generates a
high level of response because there is no sales pressure or risk of
being "pitched" by high-pressure sales types. It promises details
that can be reviewed by the prospects at their leisure.
Many business-to-business marketers mistakenly believe that all
people who respond to soft offers are just collecting brochures and
are therefore not serious, real prospects. For this reason, they avoid
soft offers. They say, "If prospects don't pick up the phone and call
me, they're not really interested, and I don't want to waste time and
money sending them expensive color brochures they're just going
to file or throw away."
While there's some validity to this point of view, it usually turns
out not to be true. Soft leads can be extremely profitable, and often
the conversion is just as good as with hard leads. For most
promotions, the best strategy is actually to give the reader a choice
of several offers, not only a hard offer or only a soft offer. (We'll
discuss the best combination of offer options to use shortly.)
Offer #2: The Hard Offer
The opposite of the soft offer is the hard offer:
An offer that requires or results in face-to-face or other personal
contact between buyer and seller in a sales situation or other
circumstances where the seller has the prospect "captive" for
 purposes of doing some selling, or an offer that actually requires
payment (or promise of payment) in exchange for the product.
In business-to-business mail-order selling, the hard offer is "Send
us payment and we will ship you the product." In business-to-
business lead generation, the hard offer is typically something like:
"Call now to schedule an appointment so we can show you how XYZ
Product or Service can be of benefit to your company."
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In the hard offer, the prospect typically calls or writes the advertiser
to arrange a meeting, demonstration, initial consultation, or
appointment. There is direct person-to-person contact between
buyer and seller initially over the telephone, and usually later face-
to-face. During these contacts, telemarketing representatives or
salespeople attempt to persuade prospects to buy the product or
service being offered.
The hard offer is ideal for prospects who have serious interest, an
immediate need, are looking to buy something fairly soon, and
want to "sit down and talk" with vendors. The prospect responding
to a hard offer, especially if by telephone, typically feels a fairly
urgent need to gather more information for an immediate or
upcoming purchase.
Use of hard offers is discussed extensively in Chapter 6. With a
hard offer, the prospect is taking a definite (if tentative or
uncommitted) step toward purchase of the product. A soft offer, by
comparison, is more of a "let me look you over" or "we'll wait and
see" response.
Offers #3 and #4: Negative and Deferred Offers
In addition to hard and soft offers, the other basic categories of
business-to-business offers are negative and deferred. Rather than
define them, I will give you the exact wording of these offers as
you would use them in a reply card in a lead-generating direct mail
package.
The negative offer reads as follows:
__ Not interested right now because: (Please give reasonthank you.)
Typically, reference to the negative offer is made in the P.S. or
elsewhere in the body of the letter, using the following language:
P.S. Even if you are not interested in [name of product or service],
please complete and return the enclosed reply card. Thank you.
The negative offer provides a response option for people who are
prospects (that is, they have a need or problem your product
addresses), but for some reason or another, do not want to buy from
you or get more information on your product. Normally, a person
not interested
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in your offer will not respond to your mailing. By using a negative
offer option, you will get response from a small portion of these
people.
The negative offer should be used when you are testing a mailing
on a new product, service, or offer you haven't promoted before
using direct mail. The reason you use the negative offer is that
without it, if you get a low or no response to your mailing, you
don't know whether it's the mailing piece that's ineffective, or
whether the product, service, or offer isn't right for the market.
With the negative offer option, people will tell you why they are
not interested in your offer. Perhaps the price is too high. Or your
technology is not compatible with the systems they are already
using. Or they don't like your type of product, or don't use it. This
information not only helps you readjust your marketing plans, it
also demonstrates that the mailing was unsuccessful for reasons
other than ineffective copy and designsomething that's good to
know if you're the person who wrote or designed it.
A second benefit of the negative option is that it can increase
slightly your overall response rate. You might object and say, "But
all the people who check the negative option box have told us they
are not prospects." But quite the opposite is true: If someone took
the time to tell you why your offer isn't right for them, they are
prime prospects. They're telling you they have some sort of need,
but your product as described in the mailing didn't seem quite right
. . . and that they want you to get back to them with a product,
service, or offer that is right for them.
Actually, your product or service may be ideal for them, but your
ad or mail copy may not have communicated this effectively, or
else they misunderstood or didn't read carefully enough. That's
okay. By completing the negative offer option box, your prospects
have set themselves up in perfect position for follow-up and
closing by a skilled salesperson.
If you have ever been a salesperson, you know the most difficult
prospect to sell is the one you can't reachthe one who never
responds to your letters or returns your phone calls, or the ones
who say they are not interested but won't say why. A prospect who
fills in the blank space on your reply card where it says "Please
give reason why you are not interested" has framed a specific
objection that can be overcome with the proper selling argument.
A deferred offer is a variation on the negative offer. Here's how it's
phrased:
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__ Not interested right now. Try us again in (month/year)
The deferred offer encourages response from prospects who do not
have an immediate need but may have a future requirement for
your product or service. Some of these prospects won't check off
the soft offer option box ("__ Please send me a brochure.") because
they think, "If I check off this box, they're going to follow up with
a phone call and pester me, and I don't have any need right now."
The deferred offer option box says to this prospect, "If you have no
immediate requirement but may have a future need, you can use
this box to let us know that you have a future need, without getting
calls and annoying follow-up from salespeople now."
When do you use the negative as opposed to the deferred offer
option? Use the negative offer option when testing a new offer or
when you think many prospects might not respond for specific
reasons. Use the deferred offer when you think a significant
number of prospects are more likely to need your services in the
future rather than immediately.
Using the Four Basic Offer Options
A common mistake in business-to-business lead-generating
advertising and direct mail is to have only one offer option. In most
instances, you should have two or three options. The best results
usually come from having three offers: a hard offer, a soft offer,
and either a negative or a deferred offer. At minimum, you should
at least have both a hard and soft offer, with one of the two being
the primary offer and the other secondary.
The primary offer is the one you hope your prospects will respond
to and the one you emphasize in your copy and graphics. For
example, if you want a face-to-face meeting with your prospects,
you would urge them to call and arrange an appointment. A "free,
no-obligation" initial appointment would be your primary offer,
and the one you stress in your letter or ad.
The secondary offer is included to give those prospects who will
not take you up on your primary offer a second reason to respond.
If a prospect is not willing or ready to take you up on your offer of
a free initial meeting, introduce the secondary soft offer at the end
of your ad or letter copy (e.g., "P.S. For a free special report
outlining
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six tax-saving strategies offered by our firm, just complete and
mail the enclosed reply card.").
Which offer should be your primary offer? Make your soft offerthe
offer of free literature or informationthe primary offer when:
requesting a brochure or catalog is the typical first step in the
buying process in your particular industry or field, and
circumventing that step would be counterproductive.
you feel many prospects would be reluctant to meet or talk with
you, so you need some sort of brochure or other literature to create
a reason for them to respond to your mailing.
your product or service is complex and requires a lot of explanation
that is best communicated in a standardized written format, such as
a brochure or data sheet.
you have limited staff for telephone contact with prospects and
your operation lends itself more to the mailing of a standardized
inquiry fulfillment brochure or package.
your prospects are far away and you do not have regional branch
offices or sales reps who can call on them in person.
you have a great brochure or inquiry fulfillment kit already in place
that has proven its ability to (I) screen out nonqualified prospects
and (2) sell effectively to qualified prospects.
Industrial equipment manufacturers are a good example of
marketers who stress soft offers. Their prospects, engineers and
purchasing agents, require a lot of detailed information on technical
products before making a buying decision, and this information is
communicated more easily in a printed brochure than over the
telephone.
Also, having a brochure on your industrial product is standard
practice in the industry, and most purchasers won't buy without
having a brochure or other technical literature in their purchasing
files. So a logical next step in industrial direct mail or ads is the
offer of such a brochure or catalog at no charge.
The hard offer should be the primary offer when:
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you would prefer to get a phone inquiry rather than a written
inquiry because your salespeople are more likely to close when
they receive a hot lead via inbound telephone.
sending printed material such as a brochure or catalog is an
unnecessary step that only gets in the way and slows down the
selling process.
there is not a lot of information or detail to communicate about
your service or product and you can sum it up quickly and easily in
a two-minute phone conversation.
you have a special free trial offer or other special offer that enables
the prospect to try your service or product on a small scale for free
or for a nominal fee, and you feel you can get prospects to accept
this offer if you can sell them on the phone or face-to-face.
your product or service is unique or unusual and difficult to
communicate in printed material and is more easily communicated
in person or over the phone or via demonstration.
your audience is not print-oriented.
An example of an industry that doesn't tend to use brochures is
vocational training for adultsoffers such as "Learn to be a computer
operator in your spare time." One such marketer told me, "We have
learned through experience that offering a brochure is a waste. To
sell the prospect on taking our program, we have to get them to
come to our facility in person for a free introductory classotherwise
it won't work."
Once you have the hard and soft offer options in place, you add
either a negative offer option if you want to learn why prospects
are not responding as you would have hoped, or a deferred offer
option if yours is the type of product or service that is likely to be
bought at a future date rather than immediately.
How will the response be split? In my mailing (reprinted in
Chapter 8), the letter generated a 10 percent response. Of the total
response, most people (more than 90 percent) check the soft offer
("Please send more information") box on the card. Fewer than one
in ten (less than 10 percent) check the hard offer ("Give me a call")
box on the reply card.
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I can convert between 10 to 25 percent of inquiries to sales within
six months of the receipt of the inquiry, if I want that much
business. Interestingly, there is little difference in the quality of the
lead (seriousness of the prospect) between those who check the
hard offer box and those who check the soft offer box: percentage
conversion to sales is the same in either category.
Almost all the response to my mailing is from the reply card. I give
my telephone number in my letter but do not encourage phone
calls. (I prefer to speak to prospects only after they have received a
complete package of information about my service.) I do not give a
fax number or encourage fax response.
People check the deferred "Not interested right now" box
infrequently, and I mail so few of these letters that I can't give you
a statistical result. Qualitatively, however, I can tell you that having
the third box for the deferred offer has paid off. I can recall specific
instances where a prospect checked off the "Try us again" option,
and when I followed up, I found they did indeed have a specific
project in mind to be started at a specific date. Immediate follow-
up with literature and later via a phone call at the time requested
resulted in a sale in at least two cases.
Enhancing the Soft Offer
The typical industrial marketer uses a fairly standardized soft offer
that is either "more information" or "free brochure." While this is
adequate in many cases and can work, there is vast room for
improvement.
The key is to use the free offer as a "bait piece" and to maximize
requests for this free information by making it seem highly
relevant, valuable, desirable, and specific to the prospect's interests
and needs. There are a number of ways to enhance the soft offer
with an attractive bait piece. The most popular, and probably still
the most effective, is the offer of a free booklet or special report.
"Free Booklet" and Other Free Information Offers
The term bait piece refers to free information the advertiser offers
in its mailing piece or ad to generate a high number of inquiries.
The term
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bait is used because the free booklet is offered not for purposes of
giving away free information or educating the reader (as the reader
is led to believe) but to ''hook'' the reader by generating a response
or inquiry that can be followed up by telephone and field sales
personnel.
Here is a secret many direct marketers do not know and will find
difficult to believe:
The free booklet (or free report or other free information offer) will
dramatically increase response to your ads and mailings over what the
response for essentially the same ad or letter copy would be without
the free information offer.
Why are free booklet offers effective? For several reasons. First,
today's business prospects, despite being overloaded with reading
material, are information seekers, always on the look-out for
advice, ideas, and information to help them do their jobs better and
more efficiently. Many publishers charge handsomely for such
information sold as seminars, audiocassettes, books, newsletters,
and manuals. So when businesspeople see that they can get similar
information from you in the form of a free booklet or special
report, they respond. After all, if it's free, they have nothing to lose.
Second, most businesspeople are so busy that they flip through
mail and ads at a frantic rate. The free booklet offer, with perhaps a
cut-out coupon in the ad and a picture of a free booklet, has
attention-grabbing power. It forces the reader to slow down, stop,
and peruse your copy. The reader thinks, "Oh, this is one of those
ads offering something free. Let me take a look for a second and
see what I can get." So they call or clip the coupon and request the
booklet.
Third, businesspeople, like everyone else, like getting things free.
In the direct marketing seminars I give nationwide, there is always
someone in the audience who says, "Aren't free offers much less
effective in business-to-business than consumer marketing? Come
on, really, how excited can an executive get about a free booklet or
report?" The fact is, whether they get excited is irrelevant; they do
get interested, and the specific offer of free information
dramatically increases ad and direct mail response rates.
The Importance of the Free Booklet Offer. The free booklet offer is
so effective, and so important, that for most business marketers
using
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direct mail to generate leads, it's a mistake not to have such an offer
as part of their mailing.
The reason is simple: Unless prospects have an immediate, urgent
need to pick up the phone and call you, your mailing is largely a
matter of indifference to them. It's just another "sales pitch"one of
many they will receive by mail or phone that day.
The prospect feels no need to respond, and doesn't. The free
booklet offer solves that problem. It says to the prospect, "Even if
you have no immediate need, don't have time to read our mailing,
and don't want to think about our product right now, at least mail
back the reply card. You'll receive something of value in return."
Such an offer converts inaction to a response.
How to Create Successful Free Booklet Offers. What are the steps
to creating and using successful free booklet offers? First, pick a
topic for your free booklet or report. The topic should be something
that interests the reader while at the same time helps sell the reader
on your system, product, service, or idea.
For instance, to promote a line of business software, IBM published a
free booklet (actually, it was a full-length paperback book) telling
small businesses what to look for when evaluating software
packages. The book helped readers by showing them what features
to look for when shopping for software. At the same time, it helped
IBM promote its software because the comparison checklists

highlighted many of the features found in the IBM products.

The free book "creates a specification" readers use to evaluate
potential software. The information is believable because it is
packaged in the form of a book rather than a promotional brochure.
Readers then go to IBM for a software demonstration; IBM has become
a credible source in their minds because, after all, they "wrote the
book." When prospects check out IBM's software, they find
(surprise!) that it fulfills the specifications outlined in the
booktherefore, it must be goodand a sale is made.
The topic you select can persuade the reader to favor your product
or service, but the "sell" must be soft and subtle. Typically, your
free report or booklet explains a certain way to do a thing or how to
select a product to do it. While this discussion must appear
unbiased and editorially
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neutral, you will slant it so the reader comes away favoring your
approach to doing the thing, solving the problem, or selecting the
product.
The booklet you write contributes to the selling process in two
ways: first, by predisposing the reader to accept your methods as
standard and desirable; and second, by positioning you and your
firm as experts in the topic.
The topic must be interesting and relevant to the reader. A small
business owner would not be interested in "How IBM Designs and
Codes Its Software Systems," but would be interested in "How to
Choose the Right Software for Your Business." The booklet must
appeal to the reader's self-interest while promoting your ownthat's
the balance you must achieve. After selecting a topic, you need a
catchy title. A title with the words "how to'' in it (e.g., "How to
Reduce Costs and Increase Productivity by Implementing EDI
[Electronic Data Interchange]'') can be effective; people want to
know how to do things. Number titles (e.g., "Seven ways," "Six
steps," "Fourteen winning methods") also make your booklet more
attractive to the reader because they arouse curiosity. People want
to know what the seven ways, six steps, or fourteen methods are.
Here are some typical titles from successful free booklets offered in
actual business-to-business direct mail and print ads:
15 Ways to Improve Your Collection Efforts (RMCB)
14 Winning Methods to Sell Any Product or Service in a Down
Economy (CTC)
Should I Personalize? A Direct Marketer's Guide to Personalized
Direct Mail (Fala Direct Marketing)
Choosing Business Software (IBM)
Aldus Guide to Desktop Design (Aldus)
Family-Owned Businesses: The 3 Most Common Pitfalls . . . and
How to Avoid Them (Consulting Dynamics)
THE Special Report: Productivity Breakthrough Projects (JMW
Consultants)
 Page 134
33 Ways to Make Better Displays: What Every Marketing Executive
Should Know about Point-of-Purchase Display Marketing (Display
Masters)
Steel Log: Glossary of Metal Terms (Specialty Steel)
7 Questions to Ask Before You Invest in DP Training . . . and One
Good Answer to Each (Chubb Institute)
The title of your "bait piece" is all important because it determines,
in large part, whether you can get prospects interested enough to
send for it. So choose the title with care. If you are selling desktop
publishing systems and your target market is advertising agencies,
how about a booklet titled "What Every Ad Agency Executive
Should Know about Choosing and Using a Desktop Publishing
System to Reduce Production Costs and Increase Client
Satisfaction"? If you owned an ad agency and were losing clients
because you didn't offer desktop publishing capability, would you
send for this free report? I should think so!
When choosing a topic and title, it's better to make it narrow and
more targeted than broad and general. By narrowing the focus, you
can cover one specific topic of great interest to your prospects with
sufficient detail to gain their attention and whet their appetite for
further contact with you. For example, Fala's booklet, A Direct
Marketer's Guide to Personalized Direct Mail is effective because
it zeros in on one specific topic of interest to direct marketers
personalizing direct mail rather than the broader, less meaningful
topic of direct mail. It positions Fala as the expert specifically in
personalized direct mail production.
After selecting the topic and title, think about format. Do you want
to publish a booklet, report, fact sheet, or poster? Or how about a
book or manual? Or do you plan on putting your information on
audiotape, videotape, or computer disk?
A fact sheet or tip sheet is the most basic format. In a fact sheet,
your information is typewritten or typeset and printed on one or
both sides of a single sheet of 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper. Such sheets
can be produced quickly and inexpensively.
For example, you can offset print or photocopy 500 single-sided tip
sheets for $30 to $50. To enhance their perceived value, print on
yellow, gold, or other brightly colored stock rather than white. The
mechanical can be made at no cost using a desktop publishing
system. Or, you can offer reprints of articles you've written, calling
them tip sheets.
 Page 135
Tip sheets can be effective, but some marketers think they look
cheap. One solution is to print your tip sheet as a poster, using a
larger size and better stock of paper "suitable for framing." The
Communication Workshop, a New York City consulting firm, has
had great success promoting its business writing seminars with a
series of one-page posters on grammar, sexist language, and similar
writing topics.
Most marketers offering free information offer it in the form of a
booklet or special report. A booklet implies a smaller size
publication, either folded or saddle-stitched (staples through the
spine). The information is more detailed than a tip sheet, but less
detailed than a book or scholarly article.
The booklet page size can be either 4-by-9-inches to fit a standard
#10 business envelope, or 5 1/2-by-8 1/2-inches to fit a 6-by-9-inch
envelope. I recently produced a 16-page booklet sized to fit a #10
envelope and printed 1,000 copies saddle-stitched for $390.
A special report is similar to a booklet except it has full size (8 1/2-
by-11-inch) pages and is mailed in a 9-by-12-inch envelope. The
report can be typewritten, desktop published, or typewritten with a
desktop-published cover. Often reports are simply run off on a
photocopier, collated, and put in a clear plastic or other attractive
cover. If you want to tailor versions of the report to different
audiences, you can keep the body of it the same and simply change
the introduction and front cover for each audience.
Even though you intend to give away your booklet or report for
free, put a price on the front cover in the upper right-hand corner.
This serves a couple of functions: first, it adds to the perceived
value of the booklet or report; people are more interested in getting
a $7 item for free than they are in getting a free item for free.
Second, it allows you to charge for the item when you get inquiries
from those who are not potential customers: students, brochure
collectors, and so on. Third, it allows you to gracefully request
payment from the occasional person who calls you and wants
multiple copies for a seminar, presentation, class, or to distribute in
some other fashion. This does happen every once in a while and
can be costly.
What should this pricing be? Say $1 or $2 for a tip sheet, $3 to $10
for a booklet, $7 to $15 for a special report, $5 to $15 for a book,
$15 to $25 for a manual. These prices seem credible and fair; if you
make
 Page 136
the price too high, the prospect realizes it's a scam to make the
offer seem better than it is.
If your report is long (fifty pages or more), you can increase its
perceived value still further by putting the pages in a three-ring
binder and calling it a manual. You can duplicate your manual in
small quantities using your office copier.
If you are going to produce the manual in volume, don't imprint the
manual cover directly on the binder. Instead, leave the binder cover
blank and use a title page. Or print the cover on a separate glossy
sheet and buy notebooks with a front cover trap-in (a clear plastic
sleeve that allows you to easily insert and remove the cover). This
way, if the report changes or becomes dated, you are not stuck with
hundreds of unusable (and expensive) custom-imprinted binders.
If the free information bait piece is lengthy and a proven success,
you may want to go to the next step and produce it as a self-
published book. IBM did this with its book Choosing Business
Software. CoreStates Financial Corporation similarly promotes its
expertise and technology in EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) by
giving away a self-published book on the subject.
A book requires more of an investment in effort, typesetting, and
printing than a booklet, report, or manual. Because of printing
economics, you will have to order a minimum of 500 copies of
your book and will probably get the best price/volume deal when
you order 2,000 or 3,000.
Be sure to get quotes only from printers who specialize in short-run
(less than 5,000 copies) printing of books. General printers charge
two to three times as much because they are not set up to print
books. For a directory of book printers, contact Ad-Lib
Publications, 51 1/2 West Adams Street, Fairfield, Iowa 52556,
phone (515) 472-6617.
A book has an extremely high perceived value and is also viewed
as being an unbiased, legitimate source of information. Because
you want to keep the cost reasonable, you should plan to publish a
small book rather than a big one. A small paperback book can
contain as few as sixty to eighty pages with as little as 15,000
words of text (the equivalent of sixty double-spaced typewritten
pages). Again, don't forget to put a cover price on the bookabout
$10 to $15 for a small paperback seems right.
 Page 137
Writing Your Bait Piece
You have selected the topic, title, and format. Now it is time to
determine the contents, make an outline, and write the copy for
your booklet or report. The most important thing to keep in mind
when writing informational premiums such as free booklets or
reports is that the contents must deliver on the promise of the
headline, convey information useful to the reader, and be accurate.
It is not necessary that the contents be revolutionary or give the
reader all new information. Many people read to affirm current
beliefs or reinforce existing knowledge. So if your booklet mostly
repeats what they already know, they'll be happy with it, and, more
important, they'll think you're a wise, knowledgeable expert on the
topic. However, if you can give the reader one or two genuinely
new ideas or things they may not have thought of before, so much
the better. It will make your booklet or report even more valuable
to them.
Do not put any selling or advertising message into the body of the
booklet. The contents should be pure information. You have
promised the reader knowledge; you impress the reader by
conveying that knowledge. If you turn the booklet into a sales
pitch, the people who sent for it expecting helpful advice will be
angry, disappointed, turned off, and not inclined to do business
with you. How much information should be included? It depends
on the length and format. A full length book, for example, must
obviously contain more detail than a one-page tip sheet. As a rule,
make your booklet or report helpful and fascinating, but don't
overdo the detail. You want to tell prospects enough to get them
interested in hiring you to solve their problem; you don't want to
tell so much in your report that it eliminates the need for prospects
to hire your firm or buy your product.
If the body is pure information, can you do any selling in the
booklet? Yes, but keep it low key. On the front cover, under the
title, put your firm as the author, giving the address and phone
number. Repeat this information on the back cover, adding a more
complete description of your company, your product or service,
how you can help readers, and the next step they should take to
learn more about your product or service. This should read like the
"about the author" bios you find on nonfiction how-
 Page 138
to books written by business experts, giving enough information to
whet the reader's appetite without being too blatantly sales-
oriented.

Magnetic and Electronic Media

One way to create additional interest and make your bait piece
stand out even more is to produce your information in the form of
an audio-cassette, videotape, CD-ROM, or computer disk-based
presentation. One advantage of these formats is that they are not
widely used and are therefore a bit unusual and likely to get greater
notice. Also, audiotapes, videotapes, and floppy disks tend to stand
out in an in-basket crowded with paper.
Other advantages? Tapes and floppy disks usually get past
secretaries who screen mail and throw away lots of paper mail.
Because a tape or disk has a higher perceived value and is a
tangible object, it won't get thrown away.
Experience has shown that business prospects will take the time to
either listen to or view the tape or disk, or at least make sure it gets
passed on to the right prospect within the organization. Printed
pieces are not treated with the same degree of importance. Finally,
even if the prospect doesn't immediately listen to or view the tape
or disk, they will probably keep it in a desk drawer rather than
throw it away. So every time they open the drawer, they see the
tape or disk imprinted with your company name and phone
number.
Audiocassettes
Audiocassettes are the easiest and least costly audio/visual medium
to use as information bait pieces. Some marketers using
audiocassettes think that briefer is better and limit the message to
ten or twenty minutes. But if the tape contains pure, useful
information, it can be much longer. I have been successful
promoting both my seminars and my consulting and copywriting
services using cassettes on marketing and sales topics that are
ninety minutes long. Audiocassettes don't require the high level of
production that videocassettes do. You can record a live
presentation or speech given at work, a meeting, or an industry
event, edit it in a studio, and offer it as an attractive bait piece on
audiocassette.
 Page 139
What will all this cost? To hire someone with professional quality
recording equipment to record a presentation costs $200 to $400
plus travel expenses. Studio time goes for $65 to $85 per hour and
should take less than half a day. To duplicate my presentations onto
C-90 (ninety-minute) audiocassettes, including a laser-printed
cassette label and soft plastic box, costs less than $1.50 per cassette
in quantities of fifty.
Videos
Videos are another story. You can expect to pay a professional at
least $1,000 or $2,000 to record you live or in a studio. If you want
a full-blown production with sets, special effects, and live location
shooting, an eight-minute video can cost $5,000 to $15,000 or
more, just for production. Cost to duplicate 1,000 copies of an
eight-minute video is about $2.50 per cassette with a cardboard box
and typed label; plastic boxes and four-color packaging can run
much higher.
Floppy Disks
A relatively new promotional medium is the floppy disk. Sales and
informational presentations can be put on floppy disks that the
prospect can view using a personal computer. Some direct
marketers are reporting success with this medium, though I have no
personal experience with it (other than conventional demo disks for
software, which is a different thing).
CD-ROMs
As more and more old PCs are being replaced by new computers
with CD-ROM drives, CD-ROMs are becoming a more prevalent
promotional medium. CD-ROMs can combine video, still images, text,
and sound. And, they can branch interactively, allowing users to
choose which information they want to review, much like browsing
the Web.
Where to Get Help
Here are some companies that can help you create information
premiums using electronic/magnetic media:
 Page 140
For audiocassette and videotape duplication:
Dove enterprises
907 Portage Trail
Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221
(800) 233-DOVE (3683)
For presentations on floppy disk:
CompuDoc Inc.
51 Mt. Bethel Road
Warren, NJ 07059-5603
(908) 757-2888
For CD-ROM producers and duplicators:
The Interactive Multimedia Sourcebook
R. R. Bowker
121 Chanlon Road
New Providence, NJ 07974
(908) 464-6800

Sources of Ready-Made Free Booklets and Special Reports You

Can Offer as Bait Pieces
One reason that more business-to-business marketers don't use the
bait-piece offer despite its proven effectiveness is as follows: "It
sounds good, but we have a limited budget and staff. I don't really
have the time to write and design or commission someone to write,
design, and print a really good booklet or special report."
There are several solutions to this problem. One is to have your
public relations firm or public relations department write and place
a feature story on your preferred topic in an industry trade journal,
then simply reprint this article as a tip sheet or booklet. This
eliminates the need for you to write, typeset, and design an original
piece.
Be sure the PR agency or department retains reprint rights or gets
reprint permission from the magazine in which the piece is first
pub-
 Page 141
lished as an article. When you offer the reprint, call it a tip sheet or
special report, not an article reprint, as the former convey higher
perceived value. Somewhere in small type on the reprint, you can
cite the publication and date of the article's original appearance.
A second strategy for offering free reports as bait pieces without
paying to create them yourself is to reprint existing copyright-free
materials that deal with your topic, would be interesting to your
prospects, and are in line with the service or product you sell.
If you're a member of a professional society or trade association,
your group may offer informative publications that they will allow
members to distribute or reprint without charge or for a reasonable
sum. When reprinting, add your own front and back cover with
your company name, description, and contact information.
Many medical societies and associations, as well as some
pharmaceutical companies, for example, offer informative booklets
on various aspects of health care that member physicians can
reprint. Most doctors simply leave copies for patients on a table in
the waiting room. But one orthodontist in my area reprinted such a
booklet with his office address and phone number, added a
personal cover letter, and mailed it, with good results, to potential
patients in town.
If you're an agent, representative, distributor, or dealer, your
manufacturer or wholesaler may provide you with booklets and
other literature you can reprint or add your label to. These can be
offered to prospects as bait pieces with no creative or other
development costs on your part.
Another well-kept secret: the U.S. government is one of the biggest
producers of informational booklets and special reports, and a large
number of these are not copyrighted and may therefore be reprinted
and used by you for promotional or any other purposes you choose.
(The government asks but does not require you to acknowledge
them as the original source of the material.) One local radon testing
firm, for example, offers a report on "radon in the home," which is
simply a reprint of a government publication with the firm's name
and phone number imprinted on the top.
For catalogs of the various government publications available for
free or at reasonable cost, contact:
 Page 142
Superintendent of Documents
Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402
(202) 783-3238
Consumer Resource Center
Pueblo, CO 81009
(719) 948-3334
Using existing publications as bait pieces works if you have a
product or service for which a more generic bait piece would be an
effective promotional device. For instance, if you're generating
leads for an executive fitness program, you could probably increase
response by offering a free package of booklets on health, diet, and
exercise that are reprints of some of the copyright-free publications
offered by the U.S. government.
On the other hand, if you are selling a highly specialized technical
product, there is probably not an existing report you can use, and
you will have to create your own. While in many cases you can
make do using existing publications as bait pieces, I usually
recommend to clients that they create their own customized
information premiums because an original publication can be made
more interesting to the audience and more relevant to the client's
product or service.
Five Reasons Why More Business-to-Business Marketers Don't Use
Free Booklet Offers
Offering a free booklet, report, or other free information piece in
your ads and direct mail can dramatically boost response. In fact,
this is one of the few surefire rules of business-to-business direct
response that works almost every time. In virtually every campaign
where I have been able to persuade a business-to-business client to
add a free booklet offer to the marketing program, sales-lead
generation has increased substantially and marketing costs were
reduced. I know of few other strategies that are so basic, simple,
and easy to use while consistently delivering such excellent results.
Despite this, many clients avoid using free booklet offers, based
largely on the following erroneous beliefs. If you are not using the
bait
 Page 143
piece strategy because of one of these fears, this list may be helpful
in overcoming your particular objection:
1. It's a Cliché. ''Offering a free booklet isn't original.'' "It's a
cliché." "Can't you think of something more creative?" The number
one reason marketers avoid free booklet offers is that they think it's
old hat and are looking for something original.
My answer is simple: So what if it's old hat? So what if it's a
formula? The fact is, it works consistently and repeatedly, for
hundreds of companies in all industries. The fact that free booklet
offers are not original is true but unimportant. What's important is
that they will generate more leads per ad or mailing, producing
more inquiries, more sales, while lowering marketing costs.
2. It's Overused. Another common objection is, "I like the idea, but
free booklet offers are so overused in our industry. Take a look at
our trade magazines and you see free booklet offers in every other
ad. And every other mailing I receive offers a free booklet. So how
could our making such an offer compete with all this clutter?"
This argument makes sense but is refuted by experience. While
there are some marketing techniques that do lose effectiveness in
the face of clutter and overuse, free booklet offers are not one of
them. In fact, the opposite is often true: prospects in a particular
industry become accustomed to seeing ads with free booklet offers
and eagerly seek out such ads in their trade publications. If your ad
lacks such a bait-piece offer, prospects become more likely to pass
it by.
3. Our Competitors Already Offer a Free Booklet. The natural
tendency is to think, "Our competitor has already published a
booklet on the topic we were thinking of, so they've beaten us to it.
There's no sense going ahead with ours."
The right strategy, however, is to go ahead with your own booklet
and either (a) choose a topic that's different but still helps promote
your product or (b) choose the same topic and produce a report or
booklet that's better.
How do you make your booklet better? Give tips and strategies the
competition does not. Include a helpful glossary, charts, conversion
tables, bibliography, checklists, names and addresses of resources,
 Page 144
graphs, and other useful references. Use pictures and illustrations
to make your point clear. Reveal inside information and details the
competition keeps secret. Even if the topic is similar, select a title
that's clearly different from the competition's. Having the same or a
similar sounding title confuses prospects and isn't good for either
you or your competitor.
Without a free booklet offer, your prospects are likely to respond to
your competitors' ads, which do offer booklets, while skipping over
yours. Adding a free booklet offer helps ensure that you, too, will
hear from prospects with a need to buy what you are selling.
4. My Prospects Already Have Too Much to Read. The fourth
argument against free information offers is either "My prospects
already have too much to read, so the last thing they want is
another booklet or report" or "My prospects are not readers."
While it is true that many business prospects already have too
much to read, they will still seek out and send for yet another
booklet or report if they perceive that it contains information that is
relevant, helpful, and tailored to their needs. Prospects may have
six inches of paperwork stacked in their in-basket, yet if their most
pressing problem is cutting energy costs in the plant, they will
respond to an ad or direct mail package offering a free report on
"Six Proven Ways to Cut Energy Costs in Your Plant This Year."
Ideally, you want your prospects not only to send for but also to
read your booklet or report. However, ever if prospects send for but
do not read your free information, the bait-piece offer has still done
its job: generate inquiries from prospects who would otherwise
have tossed your ad or mailing aside.
Therefore, the fact that they're too busy or not inclined to read the
material you send is not a good reason not to offer such
information; the key is that it overcomes inertia and gets them to
respond. Once you receive the inquiry, you can start the selling
process to convert the lead to a sale. But with no response, you get
nowhere. Free booklet offers increased response.
5. "We'll Generate a Large Volume of Poor-Quality Leads." If this
is a concern, you can qualify the leads more up front and generate a
better quality lead using these techniques outlined in Chapter 1:
 Page 145
Charge a nominal fee for your catalog, brochure, or any other
literature.
Ask the prospects to answer a lot of questions about themselves.
Make them fill out a survey or complete a questionnaire.
Make the prospect pay the postage on the return envelope or
postcard.
Tell prospects you will not fulfill inquiries if they do not provide
their phone number.
Say "serious inquiries only, please."
Do not stress guarantees, money-back offers, free offers, and risk-
free trials or estimates.
If you offer a premium, do not send the gift in response to the
inquiry. Instead, tell them they will be given the gift in person
when they meet with your salesperson, or that the gift is given
when they make a purchase.
Should You Charge for Your Booklet or Report?
In most cases, no. If you're offering a booklet or report to generate
leads for a business-to-business product or service, the booklet or
report should be free. Unless your primary business is that of
selling books or reports by mail, and you are offering this booklet
or report to build your mailing list, you should not charge for your
booklet or report. Doing so will dramatically decrease your
response rate and slow down the flow of leads, which defeats the
reason for offering the bait piece in the first place.
One argument for charging is the theory that people who pay for
the booklet or report are better qualified as prospects. This isn't true
(unless, again, your main business is the selling of books or reports
by mail). For business-to-business lead generation, you can qualify
prospects by asking them their application, the type of business
they're in, whether they have an immediate need, or other questions
in your ad coupon or direct mail reply card. But does asking them
to pay $5 for your booklet make them more qualified to buy your
widget? I don't think so. In fact, it only serves to prevent a lot of
qualified prospects who
 Page 146
would have requested your widget booklet if it were free from
doing so. (The reason is not the cost but the added trouble of
writing a check and sending it to you.)
The basic offer options for bait pieces are as follows:
Free booklet or report when prospects call or mail reply card
Free booklet or report available only to qualified prospects
Free booklet or report with self-addressed stamped envelope
Free booklet or report with self-addressed stamped envelope and $
1 or $ 2 to cover handling
Booklet or report for a price of $5 (or whatever you want to charge)
Booklet or report free to qualified prospects; $5 (or whatever you
want to charge) to the general public and others who are not
qualified prospects
If the cost of printing and distributing booklet is a real hardship for
you, you can recover that cost by requesting that the reader supply
a self-addressed stamped envelope and $1 or $2 to cover shipping
and handling. But I don't recommend this. For 99.9 percent of
business-to-business marketers, the free booklet offer should be
just thatentirely free.
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6
Hard Offers
What is a "hard offer"? In mail-order selling, a hard offer usually
requires the prospect to pay for the product in advance. The seller
ships the product only after payment is received via check, money
order, or credit card. Use of a hard offer eliminates credit and
collection problems because there is no billingeveryone pays up
front. By comparison, the soft offer in mail-order selling is the
classic bill-me offer. Here, the prospect can order and receive the
product with no money up front. The seller sends a bill and is paid
later.
There are many intermediate ways of phrasing these offers that are
neither classically hard or soft. These may be of interest to you if
you are selling business books, forms, gift items, audiocassettes,
office products, or other business-to-business products in a
traditional mail-order or one-step promotion (i.e., your prospect
orders directly from your ad, direct mail package, or catalog).
Business-to-business mail order differs from consumer mail order,
where you can get away with having a hard offer only. Indeed,
many consumer mail-order marketers do not offer a bill-me option.
They want to avoid the hassle and headache of collections, and so
require payment for the product up front.
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Also, with the price tag on many consumer mail-order purchases
being so low, it often doesn't pay to go after deadbeats who keep
your product but don't pay your bill. Deadbeats realize it's not
worth your time and effort taking them to court for a $10 past due
balance and, therefore, don't feel an urgent need to respond to your
dunning letters. A bill-me offer often will increase gross response,
but how many of those who order on a bill-me basis ultimately pay
up?
Many consumer mail-order firms, especially smaller operators, do
quite nicely without a bill-me option. They know it's easy for the
consumer to either write a check, send a money order, or charge a
purchase to an American Express, Visa, or MasterCard. I run a
small but profitable part-time mail-order business selling books,
manuals, and audiocassettes to writers and would-be writers, and
we have not had a problem with our payment-with-order policy.
In business-to-business direct marketing, on the other hand, I
believe it is a mistake, in most instances, not to offer some type of
soft bill-me offer to supplement the hard pay-up-front offer. Why?
Because customers are ordering for their company, not for personal
use. And most companies are not set up to issue advance checks.
Their usual procedure when making a purchase is to issue a
purchase order, receive the product, verify satisfaction with it,
process the invoice, and pay it when they are readyoptimally in
thirty days, but more often in sixty or ninety days.
If your selling method forces business buyers to go against their
company systems, they may decide that buying from you is too
difficult or just not worth the extra aggravation and effort, and they
may take their business to a competitor who is more flexible about
payment terms and options. For instance, if you demand payment
up front, prospects may not even know how to get their accounting
department to issue an advance check. Therefore, when selling to
businesses, you should offer both a soft bill-me option and a hard
payment-with-order option.
Variations on Hard and Soft Offers for Business-to-Business Mail
Order
Fortunately, there are a number of options for using hard offers and
soft offers in business-to-business mail-order selling that may help
you structure an offer that meets your customer's needs as well as
your own
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requirements. This is done by offering a traditional hard offer
(payment up front) with a second, conditional offer rather than a
pure, soft bill-me offer.
Let's compare the two. The traditional soft offer says, "Send us
your product and bill us. If we like it, we will keep it and pay your
bill. If we don't, we will return it, tear up your invoice, and not owe
you any money."
Perhaps your product is expensive or easily damaged, and you are
afraid of people taking advantage of you by ordering, keeping the
product, and not paying for it. One solution is to use a modified
bill-me offer, in which you agree to send an invoice, but do not ship
the product until the invoice is processed and payment is received.
This would read as follows:
__ Bill me. (Note: Product not shipped until payment is received.)
The modified bill-me offer is similar to a soft offer in that it allows
the prospect to respond without enclosing any payment and to
receive an invoice from you that they can put through the system
for payment. At the same time, it is similar to a hard offer in that
the product is not shipped until it is paid for.
A variation of the modified bill-me offer is to agree to ship the
product right away but to withhold shipment of any gift item or
other premium until payment is received. There is a danger, if your
premium is too attractive, that people will send for your product on
a bill-me basis just to get the premium, then return the product and
keep the free gift.
To prevent this, use a variation of the modified bill-me offer as
shown in the following example:
__ Bill me. (Note: Bonus gift is shipped when payment in full for
your order is received by us.)
Even if you allow prospects to keep the premium if they return the
product, this modified bill-me offer cuts down on "freebie" seekers.
It requires ordering and paying for the product to get the gift, and
few will go to that trouble just to get a free item from you unless
the premium is truly fantastic.
You can even go further and state in your offer that, if prospects
don't want to keep the product and decide to return it for refund,
they must
 Page 150
return the premium as well as the product. This provides an added
degree of protection and is useful when the premium is fairly costly
to you.
Another way to modify the bill-me offer to reduce the number of
prospects who send for the product and don't buy it is to ask
prospects to initial or sign the order card or provide a purchase
order number or actual purchase order. For example:
__ Bill me. Our purchase order number is: _____________________
Signature (required for all bill-me orders): _____________________
For phone orders, you can't get a signature, but you can still ask for
a purchase order number.
I strongly recommend that you avoid requiring prospects to send
you an actual purchase order. The purchase order number itself is
sufficient. If you insist on getting an actual purchase order, you will
lose sales from prospects who are too busy to generate the
paperwork required.
As a rule of thumb, your mailings should never force prospects to
read a lot of instructions or fine print or fill out a lot of complicated
paperwork. The more work you force your prospects to do to
respond to your mailing, the lower your response will be.
Hard Offers in Business-to-Business Lead Generation
As you will recall from the previous chapter, we define a hard offer
for business-to-business lead generation as follows:
A hard offer requires or results in face-to-face or other personal
contact between buyer and seller in a sales situation or other
 circumstances where the seller has the prospect "captive" for
purposes of doing some selling.
A typical hard offer in lead generation is a check-off box on the
business reply card or ad coupon that says, "Have a salesperson
call me." By choosing this offer option, the prospect is saying, "I
have sufficient interest in your product or service that I am willing
to have your salesperson make a presentation to me or at least chat
with me over the phone for a few minutes." This is a more
aggressive, active response toward
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initiating the next step in the selling process than the soft offer,
"Send me a brochure."
Enhancing the Standard "Have a Salesperson Call" Hard Offer
"Have a salesperson call" is probably the most widely used hard
offer in business-to-business lead generation. It paves the way for
the in-person sales visit that, for many marketers, is a crucial step
in getting the prospect to buy their product or service. In many
cases, however, few prospects select this offer option and ask a
salesperson to call or visit. The reason for this is twofold.
First, prospects don't view salespeople as helpful or beneficial. In
fact, the word salesperson signals to the prospect that sales
pressure will be exertedsomething most prospects want to avoid.
Second, most prospects don't want to hear your sales pitch or
presentation. Again, the word sales has a negative connotation,
implying that the prospect will be subject to high-pressure selling
tactics aimed at benefiting the seller, not the buyer.
The solution is to repackage the "Have a salesperson call me" offer,
using skillful copywriting and a change in tactics to convert what is
perceived as a "sell job" to what is perceived as a meeting that is
beneficial and helpful for the prospect.
In a nutshell, this is done by replacing the words sell and sales with
words that are more prospect-oriented. To start with, do not use the
term salesperson when referring to the person who will contact or
follow up with the prospect. Replace salesperson with any of the
following (or create your own title, as appropriate):
Account representative
Senior consultant
Technical specialist
Account manager
Account supervisor
Industry specialist
Program manager
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Program planner
Technical adviser
Solutions specialist
For example, if you are selling financial services, don't say "Have a
sales representative call," say "Have a financial consultant call" or
"Have a financial planner call'' (if your salespeople are truly
financial planners). If you are selling a relational database, say
"Have a database specialist call."
Next, do not use the words sales call, sales pitch, or sales
presentation when referring to the initial appointment you are
seeking with prospects because of the negative connotation of the
word sales. Instead of a sales call or sales presentation, suggest to
the prospect they contact you to arrange one of the following:
Initial appointment
Free, no-obligation consultation
Free estimate
Free analysis
Needs assessment audit
Exploratory meeting
Evaluation of their requirements
Initial planning session
Free demonstration
Free executive briefing
Free seminar
Therefore, your hard offer might now read:
__ Please have a technical consultant call to arrange a free analysis of
my network requirements. I understand there is no cost for this initial
analysisand no obligation.
 Page 153
If you phrase your offer this way or in a similar fashion, you will
get more response than if you simply say ''Have a salesperson call."
Why does this technique work so well? If you think about it, you'll
realize that any initial contact between buyer and seller is not
merely a selling opportunity for the buyer, but also has value to the
seller independent of whether the seller buys your product or
service.
For example, if a printer makes a presentation and gives you a
price quotation, that price information is of value even if you do
not hire the printer, since it provides a benchmark against which
you can judge other quotes to see if they are in the ballpark. You
might also gain some helpful pointers on the print production
process, and the printer is not compensated for giving this
knowledge to you unless you actually hire him or her to do the job.
Or, say you have an initial meeting with a financial planner during
which you ask questions about investment options, your financial
situation, and so on. To convince you that he or she is
knowledgeable, the financial planner will probably answer many of
those questions, and you can put that information to work even if
you decide not to hire that particular person. Therefore, the initial
sales meeting has value inherent in the meeting itself and
independent of the product or service.
The strategy of offering "free consultations by experts" as opposed
to the traditional "sales presentation by our salesperson" simply
recognizes this inherent value and increases response by
highlighting the value of the initial meeting or contact itself, rather
than asking for a "sales opportunity."
When asking the prospect to request an initial consultation or
meeting, two very important rules apply:
1. Make it clear that the meeting or consultation is free.
2. Make it clear that the meeting or consultation is given without
obligation of any kind on the part of the prospect to buy from you.
Especially when your offer sounds too good and generous to be
true, the prospect becomes suspicious that there is some hidden
charge or implicit agreement requiring them to buy something.
Always stress in
 Page 154
your copy that "This initial consultation is absolutely free, and
there is no obligation of any kind." Don't assume that your
prospects understand this to be so. State it directly in your offer
copy, both in your sales letter and again on the reply card.
The Offer Is More Important Than Many People Think
A common mistake among business-to-business marketing
communications professionals is to underestimate the importance
of how the offer is used and phrased. The misconception is that
offers are a gimmick used by consumer direct marketers to trick
people into responding (e.g., offering a telephone or camera as an
inducement to subscribe to a news, adult, or sports magazine) and
that in business-to-business, such tactics are neither appropriate nor
effective. The truth, however, is that the proper choice and
presentation of the offer can make a tremendous difference in how
successful your ad or mailing is in generating immediate response
and sales.
For instance, a company selling business forms decided it could
increase sales with the offer of "buy one, get one free."
Conventional wisdom says that free is the most powerful word in
direct marketing, so this offer should work well. But the marketing
manager had doubts. So he tested "buy one, get one free" against a
"2-for-1" offer. And guess what? The "2-for-1'' offer substantially
outpulled "buy one, get one free," contrary to what all the
marketing textbooks and his own consultant had predicted.
Interestingly, the two offers are materially the same. Only the
phrasing is different. But as anyone who has ever written
advertising copy knows, phrasing is important. The right phrasing
can lift response dramatically. And the wrong copy can destroy
results for a mailing with a good product or offer.
Another firm had similar results in a mailing selling custom-
imprinted executive business gifts. Here they tested "buy X
quantity, get Y free" against a straightforward discount of "25
percent off our regular prices." Again, conventional direct
marketing wisdom says the free offer is all powerful. But test
results disputed this, because the "25 percent off" significantly
outputted the "buy X, get Y free." A free offer
 Page 155
in lead generation almost always increases response, but I have
seen numerous instances in business-to-business mail order where
"free" did not pull as well as a discount, percentage off, or 2-for-1
deal.
From these case histories, we may conclude the following: Ad
agencies, consultants, and other experts or authorities in direct
marketing cannot predict with any accuracy which offer will pull
best. An experienced direct marketer can recommend different
offer strategies that may prove profitable and are worth testing, but
no one can say for certain which offer will be the winner, nor can
anyone guarantee results.
Personally, I am good at coming up with attractive offers and
recommending to clients which two or three should be tested. But,
while I can easily spot an offer that is destined to be a loser, I can
never predict with certainty which of the better offers will be the
winner. Nor can you. Therefore, the only way to come up with the
best offer for your product or service is through testing.

The Need for Testing

Most business-to-business marketers do not spend enough time and
effort experimenting with and testing different offers. To them, the
offer is more of an afterthought, with the description of the product
or service as the main thrust of marketing communications. But in
reality, the offer can be the spark that overcomes the indifference
barrier. Your prospects are bombarded by ads, mailings, and
brochures daily, and they respond to very few of them. An enticing
offer can make your communication stand out, overcome inertia,
and get your prospect to take action.
Because of the small quantities being mailed, many business-to-
business marketers believe they do not have sufficient quantity to
justify testing their offers. But a statistically valid test of offer A
versus offer B can be done even with mailings of only 4,000 or
5,000 pieces, with half offering A and half offering B. Huge
volumes are not a prerequisite for testing.
If you do an A/B split of 2,000 each, and the total market is 4,000
names, you have obviously exhausted the list, and there is no
rollout per se based on the test results. The purpose of the test is
not to
 Page 156
pretest the mailing before a rollout, but to find out which of the two
propositions, offers, themes, or direct mail packages, A or B, works
best. If sales appeal A far outpulls sales appeal B, this is an
indication that sales appeal A should be highlighted in future
promotions, and B subordinated or eliminated.
On larger lists, a successful test means you can roll out, or mail
more of the same package, to other names on the list. As a rule of
thumb, the size of the rollout should be between five and ten times
the size of the test cell. Therefore, if you have a successful test of
5,000, you might roll out to 25,000 or 50,000 names.
Even if you do not do classic split or A/B testing (i.e., statistically
valid testing of two offers with simultaneous mailing of offer A and
offer B), you should still vary your offer from mailing to mailing
and experiment with different variations to see which works best.
Generally, you must have 1,000 to 2,000 names per test cell to get a
statistically valid result. Tests of small quantities yield qualitative
information but are not statistically valid, and you should be way of
making major decisions based on them.
Some business-to-business marketers pretest promotions in focus
groups, where groups of six to ten prospects are collected in a
room, shown the promotion, and asked questions to determine
whether they would respond to it. Focus group transcripts are
valuable background material for copywriters, since these
transcripts reveal how potential buyers talk and think about the
product and its application. They are not, however, accurate
indicators of whether a given direct response promotion will
actually work. Only a statistically valid test cell can determine the
effectiveness of a mailing with any accuracy.
Different Offers Work in Different Media
The tendency is to assume that an offer working in one medium
(e.g., direct mail) will do equally well in all other media (e.g., print
advertising, radio, television, World Wide Web). While this is
frequently true it is not always so. As a result, if you are adapting
an offer that was successful in one medium to a different medium,
test cautiously before rolling out with the offer.
 Page 157
For instance, a client in the corporate entertainment field came up
with an offer he thought would work well in a mailing, and I
agreed. It involved a special promotion in which prospects could
get a discount on entertainment at their next meeting or event by
filling out and returning a simple form. Response to the mailing
was only about 1 percent, less than we had both hoped. Looking
back on it, I feel the form may have been too lengthy and time-
consuming to fill out.
But when he made this offer in a small print ad, it generated a
substantial number of inquiriesa far greater quantity than the more
costly and involved mailing. (In fact, we used extras of the mailing
piece as the fulfillment package for the ad.) Based on this, we did
no additional mailings but continued to run the offer in small
fractional ads in meetings magazines, with good results.
If a concept or script tests well in one medium, it does not mean it
will perform similarly in a different medium. I am frequently
asked, "If I test my direct mail copy in a limited telemarketing
campaign first, is that a valid way of determining whether it will
work as a direct mail piece?" Unfortunately, it is not. The
telemarketing test may be useful in helping you refine your copy
and make it more customer-oriented. But a successful
telemarketing test does not, by any means, ensure that the copy will
work as a mailing piece, an ad, or any other media.
A One-World Change Increases Response 15 Percent
Here's another case study that demonstrates the importance of
proper selection and phrasing of the offer. A company selling
mainframe utility software used simple mailings to generate sales
for its products, most of which sold in the range of $8,000 to
$12,000. The standard offer was for a free thirty-day trial of the
product. Prospects would call or mail the reply card to receive a
magnetic tape and instructions for running the program. At the end
of thirty days, they could return it and owe no money, or keep the
software and be invoiced by the software firm for the license fee.
The owner of the company found that he could increase response
by 15 percent (i.e., go from 1 percent to 1.15 percent) by changing
just one word in this offer. Can you guess what it was? He changed
trial to
 Page 158
use, so the offer was changed from "thirty-day free trial" to "thrity-
day free use." What prompted the change? Explains the owner,
''When we talked to data processing people, we found that the word
trial had a negative connotation. It meant coming in on evenings
and weekends, interrupting normal DP operations, running tests on
files, and a lot of extra work overall, and who wants to do more
work?
"Based on this, we decided to try free use instead of free trial. Our
reasoning was that people buy a product to use it, so who wouldn't
want to use it for free? Apparently, we were correct because this
one simple change boosted response and, of course, cost us nothing
to implement."
Interestingly, the owner of the firm achieved a second, similar lift
in response by making a second change in the offer, again by
changing one word. Can you guess what it was? He changed
"thirty-day free use" to "sixty-day free use." As the owner
observes, "The typical thirty-day free trial in software is really not
enough time for busy DP professionals to evaluate a product. A
tape may very well sit for two to three weeks in their in-basket
before they get around to even opening the package. At that point,
they return it because the free trial period deadline is approaching
and they don't want to be stuck with the product.
"We figured we could eliminate this anxiety by just extending the
trial period another thirty days, and it seems to work. Our prospects
feel that's a fairer amount of time to do the evaluation, and the offer
increases response slightly." The company tested a ninety-day
period with no increate in response over the sixty-day period.
Avoid Confusing or Difficult-to-Understand Offers
Although I encourage you to be creative with your offers, clarity
and simplicity are essential. The offer should be straightforward,
uncomplicated, easy to understand, and easy to respond to. If you
make the offer difficult, confusing, a lot of hard work, or
complicated, it will kill your response.
Recently, a software firm asked me to write a mailing on a fairly
complicated and expensive piece of software for the DEC
marketplace. At the last minute, the sales manager wanted to add to
the mailing the offer of a premium: if prospects bought the
software product being advertised, they would be given another
piece of software (a lower-cost program also made by my client's
company) free.
 Page 159
While the premium had high retail value, I discouraged testing this
offer. Why? Because the premium was not something the prospect
would automatically perceive as desirable; its benefits were
complex and not well known. The premium would have had to be
explained at length in an additional buck slip, brochure, or other
insert piece. We would, in effect, have had to sell two unrelated
products in a single mailing, and I have learned from experience
that you can only sell two or more products in a single mailing
when the products are related.
Make a Powerful Guarantee Part of Your Offer
If you are selling directly from your ad or mailing, be sure to back
your hard offer with a powerful guarantee. This can be a guarantee
of service, support, or return of money. For a product, the best offer
is a strong, long, unconditional money-back guarantee. For
example: "If for any reason . . . or for no reason . . . the X-100
Widget is not for you, return it within sixty days and we will refund
your money in full, no questions asked."
A longer guarantee period will generally outpull a shorter
guarantee period. A ten-day or fifteen-day guarantee period is not
long enough for prospects to comfortably evaluate your product
and decide whether it is for them. They will feel rushed and may
just return your product without trying it to avoid having the
deadline expire and being stuck with it.
A thirty-day guarantee is sufficient for most products, and I think
sixty or ninety days is even better. Many books on direct marketing
say to offer a one-year guarantee, but this can be a problem with
products that are frequently updated, such as software or annual
directoriesthe prospect could just return the old product and ask for
the new one after a year.
Make your guarantee as unconditional as possible. The more
conditions you put on the guarantee, the less prospects are likely to
trust you and buy from you. For instance, one sales training firm
selling a book on sales techniques offers a money-back guarantee if
the sales techniques in the book do not help the reader increase
income, but it adds this condition: "Just return the book along with
a record of all your sales calls made using our techniques and the
sample scripts you wrote following our outlines." The reader
thinks, "Yeah, and you'll just say I wrote a lousy script and not
refund my money."
 Page 160
A strong guarantee is an unconditional guarantee. The best offers
contain an unconditional money-back guarantee with a long trial
period. Prospects are wary of offers that seem conditional or that
might obligate them in any way. The offer should be easy to take
advantage of, easy to understand, risk free, and it should not
require any commitment or obligation on the part of the prospect.
Deadlines and Other Act-Now Incentives
Although it is not absolutely necessary, putting in an incentive or
reason for the reader to respond now instead of later will generally
increase response. Why? Because prospects are bombarded by
direct mail, sales messages, and offers daily. Your best chance of
getting a response is to give them sufficient motivation to respond
right now, while the piece is still in their hands.
If there is no "respond now" incentive, the prospect may think, "I'll
put this aside and get to it later." Unfortunately, a direct mail
package is similar to the Sunday newspaper: if you don't read it
within forty-eight hours of getting it, chances are you never will;
too many other things surface to compete for attention. In direct
mail marketing, a decision deferred usually translates into a
decision never made: no response.
How do you get prospects to act now instead of later? The simplest
mechanism is to put a time limit in your copy. This can either be a
specific date ("Offer expires March 15, 1999") or a generic time
limit ("You must reply within fifteen days to take advantage of this
special free offer").
Which is better? Both are effective. A specific date is good if you
have enough control over the timing of your mailing to ensure that
delays in printing and mailing don't make the deadline date
obsolete. For instance, you don't want prospects to get a "reply by
April 15" mailing on April 21. If you do not have precise control
over timing, or you print your letters in large quantities and mail
them regularly, a generic "respond within the next fifteen days"
offer may be better from a logistics perspective: no matter when the
mailing drops, it's always accurate.
A client asked me today, "How long should the time limit be?
Which is bettertwelve days or twenty days or twenty-five days or
thirty days or two months or something else?" Obviously, the
shorter the time
 Page 161
frame, the more pressure there is on the prospect to respond now.
On the other hand, too short a time frame may make the prospect
feel rushed and uncomfortable. For business-to-business direct
mail, a twenty-day time limit seems reasonable: short enough to
motivate action, long enough to allow some breathing space. I do
not know of any tests of long versus short deadlines and would be
interested in hearing from anyone who has data on this.
A variation of the specific date or time frame offer is the limited
number offer: "This offer is limited to the first 200 people who
respond to this letter." This tactic gets prospects' attention because
they have no idea how many pieces you mailed, and therefore want
to reply right away to ensure that they are one of the first 200 to
respond.
Other variations? The limited offer is most effective when you can
give a legitimate, credible reason why the offer is limited. For
instance, one computer company's offer was free prototyping of the
prospect's application. Now, because prototyping takes time, and
the company had a limited staff, they could handle only so many
such prototypes at one time.
The sales letter pointed this out, saying, "We urge you to hurry.
Based on response to previous mailings, we will get many requests
for this free prototyping offer, and if you are not one of the first to
respond, you may well have to wait longer than we'd both like."
This works because it's specific, credible, and true.
If you don't have a real reason why the offer is limited, you can
always invent one. But when doing so, always respect the
intelligence of your prospects. For instance, one mailing I received
told me I had to request a certain report right away "because we
have printed only 1,000 copies and supplies are limited." I
suspected, though, that if requests exceeded 1,000, they would
simply print moreso their act-now incentive lacked credibility for
me.
Premiums for Mail-Order and Lead-Generating Offers
A premium is a free gift the prospect gets for responding to your
mailing. Premiums work well for mail order as well as lead-
generating busi-
 Page 162
ness-to-business direct marketing. A major question business-to-
business direct marketers ask is, ''Does the premium have to relate
to the product or service being sold?" The answer is that it depends
whether you are generating leads or sales.
Dick Benson, a successful consultant and entrepreneur, writes in
his book Secrets of Successful Direct Mail that in mail-order
selling, it is not necessary for the premium to relate to the product
being sold. The most important criteria for premium selection,
according to Benson, are the perceived value and desirability of the
premium. If the premium relates to the product, fine, but that's of
secondary importance.
In business-to-business mail order, I agree that having a desirable
premium is important, probably the main selection criterion, but I
put more weight on trying to select a premium related to the
product. Also, you have to be careful with premiums because many
companies, especially defense contractors and subcontractors, have
policies forbidding employees to accept gifts from vendors.
In fact, one of my clients, a firm selling custom-imprinted business
gifts by mail, did a test mailing in which they tested a straight 25
percent discount on gift items against a 25 percent discount
combined with the offer of a free clock radio. Not only did the
premium not increase response, it actually depressed it.
When I mentioned this at a seminar, one participant said, "It's
probably because the buyers didn't want to be perceived as
accepting a gift or bribe for giving the vendor their company's
business." Another said, "Whenever a mail-order company
attempts to bribe me with an expensive gift, I always assume they
are inflating the price of their products to make up for it, and I
would rather not get the gift and instead pay less for the product."
A third participant voiced a similar observation: "In today's
economy, corporate employees increasingly look good to their
management by being good purchasers. That means getting the
product at the lowest price possible." His comment suggests that a
larger discount would work better than a free gift intended for
personal use.
This observation also suggests that if you do offer a premium for
business-to-business mail-order offers, make it something related
to the product and of value to the buyer's company rather than an
item for individual
 Page 163
use. For instance, a publisher selling technical journals and
information databases on CD-ROM offers a free CD-ROM stacker and
reader with the purchase of a group of its expensive CD-ROM based
information products. That's a premium that has high perceived
value, is closely related to the product, and makes the prospect look
like a smart buyer.
For lead generation, I think the best use of a premium is to offer
something directly related to the product or service. My experience
is that unrelated premiums of high value bring in large quantities of
"freebie seekers" and other unqualified leads. Modest premiums
that are directly related to the product or service increase the total
number of responses. And, while you will always get some
inquiries from those pain-in-the-neck people who seem to send for
anything and everything that's free, you will also get a greater
volume of qualified leads from good prospects.
As discussed in the previous chapter, I personally like the offer of a
free booklet or report related to the product or service being
offered. This is most often used in the soft offer ("Send for free
report"), but it could conceivably be tied to a hard offer. For
instance, you can offer an impressive report with the condition that
it is hand-delivered by a salesperson whom prospects agree to see
for an initial appointment.
One premium growing in popularity is free access to the
advertiser's website. If your website contains useful tools or
information, you may want to provide limited access only,
restricting access to the most valuable tools and information to
people who have been granted this extended access. You then offer
this access as an incentive to respond to your promotions, stressing
all the great free things available on the site.

Free Demonstration and Seminars

Another hard offer commonly used in business-to-business lead
generation is the offer of a free demonstration, seminar, or
workshop.
The advantage of a demonstration is that it clearly deals with a
specific product; therefore, those who accept qualify themselves as
having a significant degree of interest in that product. Another
advantage of a demonstration over a seminar is that a seminar
implies a scheduled event
 Page 164
that prospects must attend at a certain time and place, whereas a
demonstration implies an event given at a time and place
convenient to prospects.
A seminar implies that the event is not a straightforward
demonstration of a product but is designed to provide attendees
with useful information about a certain topic. For instance, if your
product is the W-100 Motionless Mixer, the seminar would not be
about the W-100 but might be titled, "How to Specify Motionless
Mixers in Chemical Processing Applications." Of course, the
manufacturer's agenda is to get process engineers to write their
specifications so that the installation requires use of a W-100 rather
than a competitor's mixer.
But this agenda must be subtle, and the program must be primarily
educational in nature. Otherwise, prospects will feel you have
misrepresented the program by calling it a seminar instead of a
sales pitch and will not be favorably inclined to do business with
you.
Is the free seminar approach to business-to-business marketing
right for your firm? It depends on your marketing situation. Free
seminars work well when introducing new products or
technologies. They are effective for products that require hands-on
demonstration, such as software. If your product solves or deals
with a problem or issue of interest to prospects, a seminar is a good
place to educate your prospects on the subject and in doing so,
convince them they should deal with you as an expert source of
help.
Should you charge for the seminar? No. If your purpose is to use
the seminar to generate leads and sell your product or service,
make it free. If your purpose is to make money in the seminar
business, then put on a more extensive program and charge what
other seminar marketers are charging.
Don't take the middle position and charge $25 or some other
nominal fee to cover costs. What qualifies attendees as prospects is
that they took time out to go to the program, not whether they got
in free or paid a nominal registration fee. Charging instead of
making it free also reduces attendance, defeating your goal of
generating the greatest number of qualified sales leads.
Those who have never offered a free seminar as a marketing tool
think they'll be flooded with responses because of this free offer.
Sadly, that is not the case. The mere fact that the seminar is free
will not get people to come running to your door. Executives,
managers, and pro-
 Page 165
fessionals in business are flooded with invitations to go to free
seminars and don't have time to go to even a small fraction of
them.
Will your seminar offer get response? If you're in an industry
where free seminars are not commonly used, the uniqueness of
your offer may generate a lot of interest and get a lot of response.
On the other hand, if free seminars in your field are common and
many of your competitors are offering them, don't expect your
audience to get excited about it. The free seminar may work if the
topic is attractive or your product is exciting. But don't expect
adding a free seminar offer to your reply card to generate a
breakthrough for you.
When writing an ad or mailing to get people to attend your free
seminar, you should not take the approach that all you have to do is
say the seminar is free and people will want to attend. Instead, you
should write copy that will make the readers say, "This sounds
wonderful; I would really love to go. How much does it cost?"
Then, tell them it's free.
Free seminars need not be as comprehensive as fee-paid seminars
and educational programs, nor should they be as long. Most are
half-day seminars, typically two or three hours of presentation.
When making a free seminar offer to corporate types, have it on a
weekday, preferably in the morning, starting with breakfast.
Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday are the best days; avoid Monday.
When making free seminar offers to self-employed and
entrepreneur types, an evening or weekend is usually best.
Saturday morning is better than Sunday.
Sampling, Trial Runs, and Evaluations
Three additional hard offers you can use in your business-to-
business lead-generation programs are sampling, trial runs, and
evaluations.
A sampling involves offering to render your service or allow the
customer to use your product on a sample basis. This may be for
purposes of either demonstrating your product or service or
analyzing the customer's needs to determine which of your services
or products is right for them.
For example, a firm selling equipment that turns chemical powders
into pellets says in its sales letter, "Send us a five-pound bag of
your compound and tell us what size pellets you want. We will run
it through
 Page 166
our pelletizer and give it back to you to show you the quality of the
pellets it can produce for you."
Another company, a computer firm, sells a software program that
businesses can use to quickly create customized applications that
work with their databases. One potential buyer was skeptical and
asked, "How long would it take to develop a so-and-so application
for our database using your product?" The software firm's
salesperson, instead of answering, sat at the computer, started
pressing keys, and had the application prototyped and working with
the database within thirty minutes. The prospect's response?
"Decision made! We're buying your product!" While this took
place on an individual sales call, it could be the basis of a direct
mail offer.
A trial simply allows the prospect to use your product or service
for a specified period at no cost and with no obligation to buy. The
pelletizer manufacturer's letter went on to say that if the sample
pellets were satisfactory, they would ship a pelletizer to the
prospect's plant and let them use it for a month with no obligation.
Then they would have the option to send it back (at the
manufacturer's expense) or buy it.
A trial offer can also work with a service. If you have an on-line
database, a long-distance telephone service, or another service
where users are billed by the hour, a common offer is "thirty
minutes of use free."
In the second edition of his book Profitable Direct Marketing
(NTC/Contemporary Publishing), Jim Kobs shows two ads from MCI.
The first offers $5 off the prospect's long-distance phone bill; the
second offers thirty free minutes of long-distance calls. The "thirty
free minutes" pulled roughly twice the response of "$5 off" because
customers perceived thirty free minutes of long-distance calling as
a greater value than $5 off. The thirty minutes of free service is, in
essence, a free trial of the long-distance phone service.
Similar to the free trial is the evaluation. The tone of this offer is,
"Let us send you the product at no cost, and you can perform
whatever technical evaluation is required to help you decide
whether it is the right product for you. If it is not, send it back and
owe us nothing. If it is, you can buy it for the list price of $X."
One problem with evaluations and free trials is that prospects send
for the product to evaluate and then, because of inertia, laziness, or
lack of time, don't do anything with it. One way to overcome this
problem
 Page 167
is to combine the free trial or evaluation with an incentive to
perform the evaluation or make a buying decision within a
specified period of time. For instance: "If you accept our free trial
offer and then decide to invest in the so-and-so system within the
next thirty days, you will get 10 percent off the regular purchase
price."
Mention of this time-limited offer in your ad or mailing will
increase overall response. Periodic reminders to prospects via mail
or phone during the evaluation period will help get more of them to
try the product and increase the conversion rate of leads to sales.

Key Points of Chapters 5 and 6

Do not underestimate the importance of offers.
The product or service is key, but a good offer can often mean the
difference between so-so and super response.
Most business-to-business marketers do not spend nearly enough
time on creating and testing offers.
You can never tell which offer will pull best; you should constantly
try and test different offers.
When in doubt, the surest way to increase response is to make the
offer free and without risk or obligation of any kind.
In mail-order selling to businesses, have both a hard and soft offer.
In lead generation to businesses, always include a free booklet or
other free information offer in addition to your hard "meet-with-
me-now" offer.
 Page 169

PART II
BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS DIRECT
MARKETING TASKS
 Page 171

7
Print Advertising
Hundreds of books exist on how to create memorable advertising,
so there's no sense in my repeating what they say or trying to
compete with them. In this brief chapter, we will omit some very
important topics such as positioning, graphic design, strategy,
media placement, and other aspects of creating award-winning
advertising.
Instead, we will focus on specific techniques, mostly mechanical,
that will immediately increase the pulling power of your ads, that
is, to create new ads or modify existing ones so that they generate a
lot more leads and sales than you are now getting.
Advertising managers have often said to me, ''Bob, I have a
problem. Our management people say they want advertising that
reinforces the corporate image, achieves the corporate goal, and
promotes brand awareness of our product. So we create the ad.
They approve the ad, and it runs. Then invariably, top management
complains, 'Why aren't we getting more inquiries?' Is there some
way we can increase the pulling power of our ads so they generate
greater numbers of inquiries without altering or destroying the
basic concept of the ad or campaign?"
The answer is yes, and here are some techniques you can use.
 Page 172

Technique #1: Put a Benefit in the Headline

The most successful inquiry-generating ad I ever wrote (the
number one inquiry producer in four consecutive issues of
Chemical Engineering magazine) had the headline:
How to Solve Your Emissions Problems . . .
. . . at half the energy cost of conventional venturi scrubbers.
The headline works because it combines a powerful benefit (half
the energy cost) with the promise of useful information (how to)
addressed directly at the reader's specific problem (solve your
emissions problems). In addition, it promises specific savings over
familiar, current technology (conventional venturi scrubbers).
A common fault of copy written by managers and technical
professionals is that it discusses features only and omits benefits.
Promising a benefit in the headline invites readership and increases
response.

Technique #2: Ask a Provocative Question

My friend Bob Pallace wrote an ad that generated an immediate $1
million in increased billings for his ad agency in Silver Spring,
Maryland. The headline was: "Are You Tired of Working for Your
Ad Agency?"
The ad ran only one time in each of three magazines (High-Tech
Marketing, now defunct; Business Marketing; and Inc.) and
immediately brought in five new clients. Apparently, advertising
managers at technical companies identified with Bob's claim that
conventional ad agencies don't understand high-tech, which forces
the client to do many rewrites and revisions to fix the agency's
inadequate copy. I would probably change "tired" to "sick and
tired" in the headline, but that's a minor point.
Asking a provocative question that arouses curiosity or deals with
an issue on the reader's mind almost always increases readership
and response. Other examples follow:
 Page 173
When an Employee Gets Sick, How Long Does It Take Your
Company to Recover? (Pilot Life Insurance)
Is Your Pump Costing You More to Operate Than It Should?
(Gorman-Rupp Pumps)

Technique #3: Be Direct

An ad agency asked me to write an ad to generate sales leads for a
client that repairs and rebuilds old surgical tables. When the agency
sent me its brochure, I stole the headline from the front cover of the
brochure and used it in the headline for the ad. It read as follows:
Surgical Tables Rebuilt
Free Loaners Available
This ad did better than the previous ads and demonstrates that
when you are the only one advertising a particular product or
service, or when the nature of your offer is hard to grasp, direct
headlines can be extremely effective. Another direct headline
appeared in a small ad running in Network World:
Link 8 PCs to Your MainframeOnly $2,395
Donald Reddy, president of the firm, told me that the ad was
extremely effective in generating a small but steady flow of highly
qualified sales leads.
To make the direct approach work, you have to be specific. Since
it's the content and its relevance to your audience, not the
cleverness of your words, that gains the prospect's attention, the
content must be strong. Specific content is strong content. Generic
content is weak content. "Platitudes and generalities roll off the
human understanding like water from a duck," wrote Claude
Hopkins in his classic book, Scientific Advertising. "They leave no
impression whatever."
The most common mistake I see in advertising today is "lazy
copy"copy written by copywriters who were too lazy to take the
time to learn about their audience and understand the features and
benefits of their product, or the reasons why someone would want
to buy it.
 Page 174
Good advertising is effective largely because it is specific. There
are two benefits to being specific: first, it gives the customer the
information he or she needs before making a buying decision.
Second, it creates believability. As Hopkins points out, people are
more likely to believe a specific factual claim than a boast,
superlative, or generalization.
Does this mean ad copy should be a litany of facts and figures? No.
But the copywriter's best weapon is the selective use of facts to
support the sales pitch. Here are some examples of well-written,
specific, factual copy, taken from ads:
One out of every four Americans has high blood pressure. Yet only
half these people know it. You may be one of them. If you are over
forty, you owe it to yourself to have your blood pressure checked . . .
The Mobilaire® 5000. 59 pounds of Westinghouse air conditioning in
a compact unit that cools rooms 12 x 16 feet or smaller. Carry one
home, install it in minutesit plugs in like a lamp into any adequately
wired circuit. Fits any window 19 1/8 to 42 inches wide.
BlueBlockers filter out blue light making everything appear sharper,
clearer, and with greater 3-dimensional look to it. Blue is the shortest
light wave in the visible spectrum and focuses slightly in front of our
retina, which is the focusing screen in our eyes. By filtering out the
blue in the BlueBlocker lenses, our vision is enhanced and everything
appears to have a 3-dimensional look to it. But there's more . . .

Technique #4: Give or Promise the Reader Useful Information

One software company has built a successful business primarily
with print advertising in a niche market where the competitors are
heavily into personal selling and jet-hopping to meet and ''stroke"
prospects in person. I asked the chief executive his secret for
writing a successful ad. His answer: "Make it read like an
interesting article."
One way to increase readership and response is to promise the
reader useful information in your headline, then deliver it in your
ad copy. For instance, an ad promoting a book on collections had
this headline:
 Page 175
7 Ways to Collect Your Unpaid Bills
New from Dow Jones-Irwin . . .
A Successful and Proven Way to Get Your Bills Paid Faster
The information type ad is highly effective in business-to-business
advertising. Why? Because the reason your prospects read business
publications in the first place is for information, and such ads fulfill
that expectation.
Look at the how-to, information-packed article titles that grace the
covers of Reader's Digest and family-oriented publications such as
McCall's and Family Circle. The titles are carefully selected to get
supermarket shoppers to pick up the magazine, buy it, and read the
articles. Ad headlines written in this same newsy, information-
oriented style can be tremendously successful.
Technique #5: Use a News or Time-Related Tie-In
Putting a time or date reference in the headline usually increases
readership and response, perhaps because it creates a sense of
timeliness and urgency. The headline "How to make $85,000 a
year" is good, but "How to make $85,000 this year" is better.
During the recession of the early 1990s, many advertisers used,
with great success, themes that directly tied into the weak
economy. A major telephone company, for example, used a bill
stuffer with the headline "Tough Decade?" to promote a telephone
system by stressing the need to keep costs down when times are
tough. In the late 1990s, many advertisers wisely began using a
millennium theme to tie in with the year 2000.
Technique #6: Offer a Free Booklet or Other Bait Piece in the Ad
Offering something tangiblea brochure, booklet, information kit,
videotape, audiocassette, book, special report, checklist, computer
analysis, or
 Page 176
other material the reader can send foralmost always increases the
response to print advertisements.
The problem with most general advertising is that it starts strong
but ends weak. The concept may be brilliant, the graphics clever,
the copy beautifully written, but when they get to the middle or end
of the ad, general copywriters don't know how to close. So they
sort of wind down aimlessly; usually they close with a cute phrase
or clever paragraph. But they do not have a strong call to action
because they are not trained that way.
The best way to close an ad is to stress the offer of the free booklet
or bait piece. Tell the reader what it is, what's in it, why the
information is important to them, and what they have to do to get
it. Your response will increase dramatically. Also, the more you
stress the free booklet or bait piece offer, the higher your response
will be. At the end of your ad, put in a subhead that highlights the
free booklet offer (e.g., "Get the Facts Free"). Showing a picture of
the booklet or report cover also increases response because it
makes the offer seem more tangible.
In a two-page ad, you can run a separate sidebar stressing your free
information offer. For one client, an industrial manufacturer, we
used such a sidebar to offer free copies of back issues of its
newsletter, each issue dealing with one specific topic highlighted in
the sidebar copy. The response was substantial.
International Paper did this with its "Power of the Printed Word"
series, one of the most successful corporate ad campaigns of all
time. These institutional ads featured essays by well-known figures
on various communications topics, the idea being that by
promoting literacy and the printed word, International Paper would
ensure a future market for paper. But most of the ads also contained
a box explaining the purpose of the series and offering reprints of
the ads. According to one source, millions of reprint requests were
generated from these sidebars highlighting the offer.
If you don't have a free booklet or report you can offer, at least add
something to your product brochure or your inquiry fulfillment
package that will add value and make people want to request it. For
instance, if you're offering a brochure on local area networking,
create and offer a glossary of networking terminology, or a table of
standards, or a set of network configuration diagrams.
 Page 177
Also, give your bait piece a name that implies value. "Information
kit" is better than "brochures and data sheets." "Resource guide" is
better than "catalog." ''Custom solutions kit'' is better than "sample
printouts."
Putting the offer of your free booklet, report, or information kit in
the headline of your ad will further increase response (e.g., "New
FREE booklet tells how to reduce valve maintenance costs in
pharmaceutical plants").
You can also increase response by increasing the perceived value of
your free offer. For example, you can offer a free gift, a free
product sample, a free consultation, free analysis, free
recommendation, free study, free cost estimate, or free computer
printout. If the gift is a small premium of low perceived value, say
"Surprise bonus gift is yours when you mail the coupon or call us
today." If the gift is a nicer premium with a higher perceived value,
say what it is.

Technique #7: Put a Coupon in Your Ad

Coupons visually identify your ad as a direct response ad, causing
more people to stop and read it or at least look at the coupon to see
what they can get for free. Just by adding a coupon to your ad, you
can usually increase response 10 to 25 percent or more. Make the
coupon large enough so that readers have plenty of room to write in
their names and addresses.
Give the coupon a headline that affirms positive action: "YES, I'd
like to cut my energy costs in half!" Have several check-off boxes
readers can use to indicate their level of interest. Include both a
hard ("Have an account representative call") and a soft ("Please
send me a free brochure") offer.
For a full-page ad, run the ad on a right-hand page and put the
coupon in the bottom right corner. If your ad is running in a
directory, rather than a monthly magazine or daily newspaper, note
that people do not like to tear up directories. Therefore, for an ad
running in a directory, add copy that encourages the reader to
photocopy the ad and coupon before filling it in.
Your coupon should include your address and instructions telling
people to mail the coupon to that address. But your address should
also
 Page 178
be printed in the body of the ad, outside the coupon. That way,
someone can write to you even if the coupon has been clipped from
the ad by someone else. In trade and business magazines, a bound-
in business reply card, appearing opposite your ad, can increase
response by a factor of two to four times or more. However, it's
expensive.
Fractional ads of one-half page or less do not have enough room to
allow use of a coupon. In fractional ads, put a dashed border
around the ad to simulate the look and feel of a coupon. Your
closing copy instructs the reader, "For more information, clip this
ad and mail it to us with your business card."

Technique #8: Use a Headline with Multiple Parts

Many businesspeople believe a headline must be catchy and clever,
and the fewer words used, the better. But a headline doesn't have to
be short to sell. In fact, it doesn't even have to be a single sentence.
You can often build readership and response by using a multipart
headline. This might be a two-part headline, with a main headline
and a subhead below it. Or it might be a three-part headline, with a
kicker above the main headline, the main head, and a subhead.
Why do multipart headlines work so well? A single headline
communicates one key point, and if that point is not of interest to a
particular prospect, you lose him or her. With a multipart headline,
you can highlight two or three different appeals without losing
impact.
The kicker is an eyebrow or short line that goes in the upper left
corner of the ad above the main headline, either straight or at a
slant. Sometimes it is placed in a circle or sunburst for added
emphasis. One good use of the kicker is to select a specific type of
reader for the ad ("ATT: UNIX applications developers"). Another
effective technique is to highlight your offer ("35 percent discount
on all books and tapes listed in this ad").
Under the kicker, set in large type, comes your main headline. This
states your central benefit, unique selling proposition, or promise.
Then, in a subhead below it, you expand on the benefit or reveal
the specific nature or details of the promise. An example follows:
 Page 179
For High-Speed, High-Performance Data Integration, Look into
Magic Mirrored
Now you can move data instantly from one program to anotherright
from your PC screen.
The headline/subhead format is especially effective in cases where
your headline is written for maximum drama, perhaps at the
expense of clarity. You can get away with a headline that is clever
or gimmicky if you immediately follow with a subhead that makes
clear the key benefit or proposal.
Benefits or offers promised in a headline should be immediately
explained or presented in a subhead or within the first sentence or
two of body copy. Otherwise, you risk losing the interest of the
reader whose attention you worked so hard to gain. A common
complaint of impartial readers and focus groups who review copy
before it is printed is, "It doesn't get to the point fast enough."

Technique #9: Make the Ad Look Like a Direct Response Ad

Some ads look like "image" ads and don't invite response. Other
ads look like "mail order" or ''coupon" ads and beckon to the
reader, "Please call or write." If you design your ad to look like a
direct response ad instead of an image ad, you will get more
responses. Following are some tricks of the trade used in designing
successful direct response ads.
Long Copy. A direct response ad typically has more words than a
general image advertisement. In the general ad, the "concept"the
way the headline and visual work together to communicate a single
messageis key. The idea is to come up with a powerful concept so
readers will remember it. In direct response ads, the purpose of the
headline is to get people to read the copy and order the product or
request more information.
Make It Look Like an Article. A common technique for designing
long-copy direct response ads is to set them in three columns of
type similar in style and format to a magazine or newspaper article.
The theory
 Page 180
is that people buy periodicals for the articles, not the ads, so you
get better readership by making your ad look like an article. (Note:
If you use this technique, most publishers will require you to print
the label "Advertisement" in small type at the top of your editorial-
style ad.)
Black-and-White Ads. Using a black-and-white ad instead of a
four-color ad can increase response, except for certain products,
such as fashion, cosmetics, or travel, that must be illustrated in full
color. But direct response advertisers run more black-and-white
ads, while general image advertisers tend to run more four-color
ads. One motivation is that the black-and-white ads look more like
articles and less like ads.
Graphic Techniques. Kickers, bold headlines, liberal use of
subheads, bulleted or numbered copy points, coupons, sketches of
telephones, toll-free numbers set in large type, pictures of response
booklets, dashed borders, asterisks, copy sections in boxes, special
border treatments, and marginal notes can make your ad more eye-
catching, help emphasize your free offer, and increase response.
Photographs. Use clear, direct, relevant pictures to illustrate your
ads. General image advertising, as created by Madison Avenue,
often uses clever or breathtaking graphics that have little to do with
the product. Early commercials for the Infiniti, for example,
showed the ocean and never pictured the car. Direct response ads
tend to have pictures either of the product or of people using and
enjoying the product. Weight loss ads have before and after
pictures of the people who lost weight. Record club ads show
pictures of records and CDs.
Clear Type. Use clear, easy-to-read type. The direct marketer cares
whether people read the body copy, based on the theory that the
more they read, the more likely they are to buy the product or
respond to the offer. Therefore, type is set in black on white paper,
in large size, in an easy-to-read, popular type style.
This is unlike many consumer ad agencies, which set type in
reverse, on colored backgrounds, against tints, in small sizes and
odd, difficult-to-read typefaces, because many art directors do not
believe people read, and they treat type as just one more design
element.
 Page 181

Technique #10: Advertise the Products the Prospects Need and

Want Most
Make sure you are advertising a product that is potentially useful to
the people reading your advertisement. This seems to be a simple
and obvious rule. Yet, many clients believe that a great ad can sell
anything to anyone. They are wrong.
"Copy cannot create desire for a product," wrote the late Eugene
Schwartz in his book, Breakthrough Advertising. "It can only focus
already existing desires onto a particular product. The copywriter's
task is not to create this mass desirebut to channel and direct it."
For example, no advertisement, no matter how powerfully written,
will convince vegetarians to have a steak dinner at your new
restaurant. But your ad mightif persuasively wordedentice them to
try your salad bar.
Charles Inlander, of the People's Medical Society, is a master at
finding the right product for the right audience. His ad "Do you
recognize the seven early warning signs of high blood pressure?"
sold more than 20,000 copies of a $ 4.95 book on blood pressure
when ran approximately ten times in Prevention Magazine over a
three-year period. "First, you select your topic," said Inlander,
explaining the secret of his advertising success, ''then you must find
the right place to advertise. It's important to pinpoint a magazine
whose readers are the right prospects for what you are selling." In
other words, the right product for the right audience.
For instance, here's an attention-grabbing headline from an ad
published in my local newspaper:
Important News for Women with Flat or Thinning Hair
This headline is effective in gaining the attention of the prospect
for two reasons: (1) it promises important news, and (2) it identifies
the prospects for the service (women with flat or thinning hair).
Incidentally, this ad persuades more than 1,200 readers a month to
clip a coupon and send for a free brochure on a hair conditioning
procedure.
A Miscellany of Response-Boosting Ideas
Here are some more things you can do to increase your ad's pulling
power:
 Page 182
Ask for action. Tell the reader to phone, write, fax, E-mail, contact
the sales rep, request technical literature, or place an order.
Offer free information, such as a color brochure or catalog.
Describe your brochure or catalog. Tell about its special features,
such as a selection chart, planning guide, installation tips, or other
useful information it contains.
Show a picture of your brochure or catalog.
Give your literature a title that implies value. "Product guide" is
better than "catalog." "Planning kit'' is better than "sales brochure."
Include your address in the last paragraph of copy and beneath
your logo, in type that is easy to read. (Also place it inside the
coupon, if you use one).
Include a toll-free number in your ad.
Print the toll-free number in extra-large type.
Put a small sketch of a telephone next to the phone number. Also
use the phrase, "Call toll-free."
Create a hot line. For example, a boiler manufacturer might have a
toll-free hot line with the numbers 1(800) BOILER. Customers can
call the hot line to place an order or to get more information on the
manufacturer's products.
For a full-page ad, use a coupon. It will increase response 25 to 100
percent.
Make the coupon large enough so that readers have plenty of room
to write in their name and address.
Give the coupon a headline that affirms positive action"Yes, I'd like
to cut my energy costs by 50 percent or more."
Give the reader multiple-response options"I'd like to see a
demonstration," "Have a salesperson call," "Send me a free
planning kit by return mail."
For a fractional adone-half page or lessput a heavy dashed border
around the ad. This creates the feel and appearance of a coupon,
which in turn stimulates response.
 Page 183
In the closing copy for your fractional ad, say, "To receive more
information, clip this ad and mail it to us with your business card."
A bound-in business reply card, appearing opposite your ad, can
increase response by a factor of two or more.
Use a direct headlineone that promises a benefit or stresses the
offer of free informationrather than a headline that is cute or clever.
Put your offer of a free booklet, report, selection guide, or other
publication in the headline of your ad.
Offer a free gift, such as a slide rule, metric conversion table,
pocket ruler, etc.
Offer a free product sample.
Offer a free consultation, analysis, recommendation, study, cost
estimate, computer printout, etc.
Talk about the value and benefits of your free offer. The more you
stress the offer, the better your response.
Highlight the free offer in a copy subhead. The last subhead of your
ad could read, "Get the factsFree."
In a two-page ad, run copy describing your offer in a separate
sidebar.
Be sure the magazine includes a reader service number in your ad.
To increase reader service card reponse, use copy and graphics that
specifically point the reader toward using the reader service
number. For example, an arrow pointing to the number and copy
that says, "For more information, circle reader service number
below."
Consider using more than one reader service number. For example,
one number for people who want literature, another for immediate
response from a salesperson.
In a full-page ad for multiple products, have a separate reader
service number for each product or piece of literature featured in
the ad.
 Page 184
Test different ads. Keep track of how many inquiries each ad pulls.
Then run only those ads that pull the best.
Look for a sales appeal, key benefit, or theme that may be common
Look for a sales appeal, key benefit, or theme that may be common
to all your best-pulling ads. Highlight that theme in subsequent ads.
If you are interested in getting responses via reader service cards
("bingo" cards), be sure the magazine includes a reader service
number in your ad.
Another way to increase reader service card number inquiries is by
using multiple numbers. Some advertisers use a different number
for each product or piece of literature featured in the ad. Others use
one number for literature requests and a second number for people
who want immediate contact from a sales rep.
If you don't have space in your ad to give as much information as
you would like, encourage the reader to visit your website.
 Page 185

8
Direct Mail
Despite the growth of fax, E-mail, and websites, mail is still a vital
part of business communications. According to a survey by the
U.S. Post Office, 75 percent of business executives read mail as
soon as it is received, and 65 percent feel strongly that letters are
important when conducting official business.
A Gallup Study indicates that direct mail is the most common
communications medium, used by 77 percent of U.S. companies.
In the survey, marketing managers rated direct mail as the best
communications tool for generating sales, educating business
decision-makers on complex issues, selling products directly to
businesses, and notifying business prospects about new products
and services. Sixty-five percent of the companies using direct mail
have increased direct mail budgets in the past five years by an
average of 25 percent.
In this chapter, I will present a collection of ideas and techniques
for dramatically boosting the response rates of business-to-business
direct mail. I'll begin with a proven five-step formula for writing
powerful sales letter copy, the basis of most successful direct mail
programs. And I'll illustrate with some sample letters. After that,
we'll answer some common questions from business-to-business
marketers who want to do successful direct mail but don't quite
know what the right approach is to maximizing their response and
sales.
 Page 186

The Motivating Sequence

There are a number of popular letter-writing formulas presented in
books and seminars on direct marketing. And, of course, I have my
own, which I call the Motivating Sequence.
The Motivating Sequence is a simple five-step formula you can use
to write a persuasive lead-generating sales letter. It can also be used
in writing ad copy, self-mailers, fliers, brochures, catalog copy, and
other marketing documents designed to generate responses, leads,
and sales. Here is the formula:
1. Gain the prospect's attention.
2. Engage the reader's interest by identifying a problem the reader
has or a need that must be filled.
3. Position your product, service, or company as the solution to the
reader's problem.
4. Offer proof to convince skeptical readers that your claim you can
solve their problem is true.
5. Invite the reader to take action toward implementing your
solution. This might be to request more information or to order the
product or service.
Model Lead-Generating Letter Following the Motivating Sequence
Let's look at two model letters that follow the motivating sequence
and analyze how they follow the formula. In my seminars, I've
found that going through an actual sample letter and showing how
it follows the formula helps students master the sequence and use it
to write persuasive sales letters.
The first example is a letter I use to generate inquiries for my own
freelance copywriting services. Figure 8.1 is the complete text of
the letter and the corresponding response card, with numbers
indicating the five steps of the sequence. After you read the text,
we'll break down the steps.
 Page 187

FIGURE 8.1 MODEL LEAD-GENERATING LETTER

(1) Dear Marketing Professional:

(2) ''It's hard to find a copywriter who can handle
industrial, high-tech, and business-to-business
clients," a prospect told me over the phone today.
"Especially for brochures, direct mail, and other
long-copy assignments."
(3) If so, please complete and mail the enclosed
reply card, and I'll send you a free information kit
describing a service that can help.
(4) As a freelance copywriter specializing in
business-to-business advertising since 1982, I've
written hundreds of successful ads, sales letters,
direct mail packages, self-mailers, brochures, feature
articles, press releases, newsletters, and audiovisual
scripts for clients all over the country.
But my information kit will give you the full story.
You'll receive a comprehensive "Welcome" letter
that tells all about my service, who I work for, what I
can do for you, how we can work together.
You'll also get my client list (I've written copy for
more than ninety-five advertisers and agencies),
complete with client comments . . . biographical
background . . . samples of work I've done in your
field . . . a fee schedule listing what I charge for ads,
brochures, and other assignments . . . helpful article
reprints on copywriting and advertising . . . even an
order form you can use to put me to work for you.
 (5) Whether you have an immediate project, a
future need, or are just curious, I urge you to send
for this information kit. It's free . . . there's no
obligation . . . and you'll like having a proven
copywriting resource on filesomeone you can call on
whenever you need him.
From experience, I've learned that the best time to
evaluate a copywriter and take a look at his work is
before you need him, not when a project deadline
comes crashing around the corner. You want to feel
comfortable about a writer and his capabilities in
advance . . . so when a project does come up, you
know who to call.
 Page 188

Why not mail back the reply card today, while it is

still handy? I'll rush your free information kit as soon
as I hear from you.
Regards,
Bob Bly
P.S. Need an immediate price quotation on a
copywriting assignment? Call me now at (201) 385-
1220. The conversation is free. And there's no
obligation.

Step 1: Gain the Prospect's Attention. You can do this in any of a

number of ways. In a form letter, you can set a headline in type
above the body copy. Or put an attention-getting message in a box
above the salutation.
In this letter, mailed to advertising and marketing managers at
corporations and medium-sized businesses, the salutation"Dear
Marketing Professional"is the attention-getting device. The word
marketing identifies the reader as someone with an interest in
improving marketing results, while the word professional is
flattering.
Could my sales letter be made stronger with a benefit-oriented
headline or boxed copy stressing a sales point or free offer?
Probably. But this letter generates a 10 percent or higher response
when mailed as is, so I haven't put in the effort to make it stronger.
(If you feel like doing it, I'd like to see what you come up with!)
Step 2: Engage the Reader's Interest by Identifying a Problem the
Reader Has or a Need That Must Be Filled. This is stated in my
first two paragraphs:
"It's hard to find a copywriter who can handle industrial, high-tech,
and business-to-business clients," a prospect told me over the phone
today. "Especially for brochures, direct mail, and other long-copy
assignments."
Do you have that same problem?
It's often easiest and at the same time most direct and convincing to
identify the reader's most pressing problem or key concern as a
question to which you know they will invariably answer yes:
 Page 189
Are you sick and tired of paying too much for health care insurance?
But you can also phrase the problem or need as a statement:
If you're like most small business owners I know, you're sick and tired
of paying too much for health care insurance for yourself and your
employees.
Using a statistic or fact to dramatize the problem is another
effective opening gambit:
According to a recent study by Smith & Powers Associates, 54.8
percent of small business owners surveyed say they will stop
providing health insurance to their employees as a benefit this year or
next year because the cost is too high. . . .
Step 3: Position Your Product, Service, or Company as the Solution
to the Reader's Problem. The discussion of readers' problems or
identification of their needs should be briefnot an essay or Ph.D.
thesis, but just enough to (a) get them interested and (b) show you
understand their needs and problems. Then your copy should move
swiftly and directly to positioning your product or service as the
solution to their problem.
I usually do this with a short transition sentence such as "And that's
where we can help" or "Here's a (product/service) that can solve
that problem for you." In my sample letter, this "we can help"
theme is communicated in the third paragraph:
. . . please complete and mail the enclosed reply card, and I'll send
you a free information kit describing a service that can help.
Step 4: Offer Proof to Convince Skeptical Readers Your Claim
That You Can Solve Their Problem Is True. This proof can be any
of the following:
A description of product benefits and features
An explanation of how your service is rendered
Testimonials from satisfied customers
A list of prestigious clients
Research or laboratory test results that prove the superior
performance of your product
Case histories that demonstrate the success your product or service
has had solving problems similar to the prospect's problem
 Page 190
The credentials, track record, and experience of your company
Awards, licenses, degrees, certifications, affiliations, and other
demonstrations of your reputation, expertise, and stability
In the example, instead of listing this information in the letter, I
offer it in a free information kit the reader is encouraged to send
forbut I do let the reader know these credentials exist and are
available on request.
Step 5: Invite the Reader to Take Action Toward Implementing
Your Solution. This is the call to action. In this step, you discuss
your offer and invite the reader to take you up on it. You also
provide the reply mechanism, which may be a business reply card,
order form, or telephone or fax number. Here's the call to action
from our model letter:
Whether you have an immediate project, a future need, or are just
curious, I urge you to send for this information kit. It's free . . . there's
no obligation . . . and you'll like having a proven copywriting
resource on filesomeone you can call on whenever you need him.
From experience, I've learned that the best time to evaluate a
copywriter and take a look at his work is before you need him, not
when a project deadline comes crashing around the corner. You want
to feel comfortable about a writer and his capabilities in advance . . .
so when a project does come up, you know who to call.
Why not mail back the reply card today, while it is still handy? I'll
rush your free information kit as soon as I hear from you.
Regards,
Bob Bly
 P.S. Need an immediate price quotation on a copywriting assignment?
Call me now at (201) 385-1220. The conversation is free. And there's
no obligation.
The action step is the simplest portion to write, yet it is the most
frequently omitted by the inexperienced marketer. Avoid weak
closes
 Page 191
such as "We look forward to serving you" or "Let us know how we
can be of service." To succeed in direct mail, you must:
Determine exactly how you want readers to respond and what you
want them to do.
Tell readers how you want them to respond and what you want
them to do.
Make it easy and convenient for readers to respond.
Give the reader benefits, reasons, or motivation to respond.
Create a sense of urgencya reason why the reader is better off
responding now instead of later.
Model Mail-Order Letter for the Motivating Sequence
For those of you who sell products or services direct via mail order
rather than through lead generation, Figure 8.2 is a sample mail-
order letter. It is longer, but it still follows the same five-step
Motivating Sequence used in our shorter lead-generating letter.
Although I will not go through the copy step by step as I did with
the previous letter, I have annotated this letter so you can see where
each step in the sequence is introduced.

FIGURE 8.2 MODEL MAIL-ORDER LETTER

(1) Here's How I Made $190,296 by Staying Home

and Writing
Dear Writer:
The writing life is a great life. I love staying home,
avoiding the rat race, and getting paid good money
to sit at my beloved Kaypro computerthinking,
reading, and writing for my clients.
Now, I want to show you how to stay home
writing while earning $500 a dayor $50,000 to
$75,000 to $100,000 a YEAR or more
What's the secret? I call it . . . High-Profit Writing.
 Page 192

High-Profit Writing is a different type of writing.

You don't usually read about it in writers' magazines,
or hear about it on TV or radio talk shows.
It doesn't have anything to do with writing books
or magazine articles (although I've written eighteen
books and more than 100 articles in my spare time).
(2) Most writers hope to earn fame and fortune
through books and articles. But it rarely works out.
The pay scales are low (except for a handful of
superstars). And the field is too crowded.
If you've ever submitted a manuscript or query letter,
you know what I'm talking about.
(3) Instead, High-Profit Writing deals with the field
of commercial writing: creating ads, brochures, and
promotional materials for national corporations . . .
local businesses . . . entrepreneurs . . . nonprofits . . .
and other organizations and institutions that need
written materials to sell their products, educate their
audiences, raise funds, or enhance their public
image.
(4) How Much Money Can You Make in High-Profit
Writing?
The profits are so huge in this business that, to the
beginner, they may seem astounding.
For example, I was recently paid $4,500 by one
client to write a direct mail package. Another client
paid me $5,500 to write a slightly more complex
mailing consisting of a sales letter, brochure, and
order form.
One bank hired me to write two brochures for two
different divisions, and gave me a check for $5,760.
And, although my income is well into six figures
(last year I grossed $190,296), there are others
earning even more:
Eugene Schwartz, a well-known direct mail
writer, gets $24,000 (yes, $24,000) to write a
sales package.
Writer Richard Armstrong, who is also an author
and actor, charges $2,500 for a twenty-minute
speech.
One woman who moonlights seventeen hours a
week earned $30,000 in nine months using my
methods.
 Page 193

I recently wrote four brochures in four weeks for

one client. My fee? $18,400. That same month,
another client hired me to write six simple
''product data sheets" for a fee of $11,600.
And best of all, there is no querying. No outlines.
No proposals to editors. No library research or
"journalistic" reporting involved.
Instead, the clients come to you with assignments.
You receive an advance retainer check and a
contract. You are provided with all the research
material and background you need. All you do is
write.
You are paid for your ideas and creativitynot your
legwork. And if you are asked for advice, you can
charge a consulting fee of $50 to $400 an hour (My
friend Dr. Andrew Linick gets his fee up front and is
booked nine months in advance.). You don't give
away your ideas for free, as magazine editors expect
you to do.
Now You Can Make Big Money Through Freelance
WritingStarting Today!
After loving this business for nine years, I realized
that (1) there is more than enough work to go around
and (2) for that reason, why not help other writers
and share the wealth?
To make it easy for you, I wrote a complete plan,
sharing with you exactly what is involved in the
High-Profit Writing business.
 You'll discover what you have to dostep by stepto
break in, get started, and make a lot of money
writing ads. Brochures. Booklets. Direct mail letters.
Press releases. Audiovisual scripts. Speeches.
Manuals. Articles. Company newsletters. And other
materials for local and national clients.
Because my copyrighted plan has never been
available to writers until now, I call it "Secrets of a
Freelance Writer."
My plan shows you everything you need to
succeed. Nothing is left out. For the first time, all the
secrets of the high-paid commercial writers are
revealed in full detail.
Here's Just a Sampling of the Secrets Revealed in
"Secrets of a Freelance Writer"
The best clients for freelance writerswhere to find
them; how to get them to hire you (p. 16).
 Page 194

How to earn $1,000 to $3,000 per assignment

ghostwriting articles and speeches for busy
executives (p. 201).
Which freelance assignments pay best? Tip: Not
all
The seven reasons why potential clients need
your services even though they already have an
ad agency, staff writers, or use other freelancers
(p. 21).
How to get paid big money from local businesses
for your ideas and advice (p. 261).
How to write a sales letter that brings you two to
ten new potential clients (companies who want to
hire you) for every 100 letters you mail (p. 40).
Readers of "Secrets of a Freelance Writer" Say It
Best
Your books have been a great inspiration to me. In
two years, I have gone from zero customers, zero
prospects, zero ad-agency experience, and zero
income to working with Fortune 600 companies like
Hewlett-Packard, earning $85,000+per yearand
quickly closing in on a six figure income. Thanks."
Steve Edwards, Carlsbad, CA
"Reading Secrets of a Freelance Writer, particularly
the tips on contracts saved me at least $10,000 in six
months."
 Catherine Gonick, Jersey City, NJ
"With Bob's practical ideas and clear advice, I've
been able to land jobs I would never have thought of
before and establish myself as a highly successful,
full-time, professional freelance writer.''
Joe Vitale, Houston, TX
"I've just completed the three busiest, most
financially rewarding months of my writing career
and part of the credit goes to you for
 Page 195

sharing your 'secrets.' I've had little time for (low

paying) pieces of cake, but no complaints. I'm having
fun, and earning."
Irwin Chusid, Montclair, NJ
(5) Try Secrets of a Freelance Writer For Ninety
Days Risk-Free
To order Secrets of a Freelance Writer, just fill in the
coupon portion of the enclosed pink circular and
mail it to me with your check or money order.
I'll rush the program to you (more than 270 pages
of instruction) as soon as I hear from you. And, if
you are not 100 percent delighted with my material,
simply return it within ninety days for a full, prompt
refundno questions asked.
I can't think of a fairer . . . or easier . . . way for
you to sample my High-Profit Writing techniques
without risking a penny.
As I said at the beginning: The writing life is a
great lifeespecially if you are getting paid
handsomely to sit at home and do it. Why not enjoy
the good life now instead of later?
Send for my instructions and get started today.
There is no risk or obligation of any kind. And your
satisfaction is guaranteed. You can't lose.
Yours for success,
Bob Bly, The High-Profit Writer
P.S. Wondering how much to charge clients for an
article, press release, brochure, booklet, ad,
newsletter, or sales letter? A complete and up-to-date
table of fees appears on page 26 of Secrets of a
Freelance Writer. Consult this fee schedule before
quoting your fee to a prospective client to make sure
your price is in line with what the client expects to
pay.
Bob Bly / 22 E. Quackenbush Avenue / Dumont, NJ
07628 /(201) 385-1220
 Page 196
This letter is actually an inquiry fulfillment letter. I run small
classified ads in the writers' magazines with the headline "Make
$85,000 a Year" and offer "free details." People who respond get
this letter, a flier that describes the book and has a tear-off order
form and a reply envelope. The letter typically converts 20 to 30
percent of inquiries to sales, depending on which publication the
inquiries came from.

Frequently Asked Questions about Business-to-Business Direct

Mail
If you master the five-step Motivating Sequence for persuasive
writing, you won't necessarily have learned everything you need to
know about direct mail. And it may not make you a creative
genius. But it will enable you to produce competent, hard-working
letters that, while they may not win awards, will generate more
inquiries, leads, and sales than the letters your competitors are
using.
As for the rest: in this brief chapter, I cannot give you a complete
course in direct mail fundamentals. That will take many courses,
seminars, and books. But I can hit the highlights.
The following was presented, in slightly different form, as a speech
to the New Jersey Association of Advertising Agencies.
"What Is the Most Important Factor Affecting the Response to a
Direct Mail Piece?"
The mailing list. The "creative approach" copy and graphics might
lift response 10, 20, 30, or 40 percent higher than previous
mailings. In some cases, a great creative approach might even pull
double previous mailings. So if you have a mailing pulling 2
percent right now, redesigning and rewriting the package might get
you 2 1/2, 3, 4, possibly even 5 percent response.
But a given piece of copy, mailed to the best mailing list, might
pull four to ten times the response of the same mailing piece sent to
the worst mailing list. So if the response was 2 percent on the best
list, using the worst list might get you a quarter percent response or
worse. Interestingly, you can get this tremendous difference in
response rates even
 Page 197
between business-to-business mailing lists that, on the surface, may
seem identical and not worth testing.
For example, I wrote a mailing to sell a piece of software aimed at
users of a specific kind of computer system. There are a number of
trade journals serving users of this type of computer, and all are
similar. They are targeted toward the same type of reader, and they
run similar articles. Yet when we split our mailing among the
subscriber lists of two of these magazines, we found magazine A
pulled three times the response of magazine B. Had we not tested
lists (a major mistake business-to-business direct marketers commit
on a daily basis) and mailed to magazine B only, our mailing would
have looked like a failure. But with the list from magazine A, the
mailing was three times as profitable.
It is a mistake to think you know which list will pull best without
testing, or to rent lists directly from list owners or managers, who
of course want to sell you their list and won't tell you about others
you might try. You should always rent your lists from a mailing list
broker, not directly from a trade magazine, publisher, or
association. Why? Because brokers act as list consultants to help
you identify, examine, and test the right lists to maximize your
response. For the most part, their services are free; brokers do not
charge for their research and recommendations. They are paid only
when you actually rent lists, and their fees are paid by the list
owner, not you, the client.
When you put a good list broker to work for you, the broker will
examine your copy, search list files, and come up with
recommendations for testing a number of lists reaching your target
market. Some list brokers experienced in working with business-to-
business clients are listed in the Appendix. For some narrow
vertical markets, the list broker may not come up with any list you
didn't already know about. But that's okayat least now you have
done your homework and know it's true that the one or two lists
you are using are the only ones available. Often, however, the list
broker will come up with additional lists targeted to the market
when the client swore that so-and-so magazine or such-and-such
association was the only list available.
Ideally, I would like the broker to recommend five to eight lists, if
that many are available. The broker will send you data cards that
describe the source of the list, the market it represents, and whether
you can target your mailing to specific types or sizes of companies
or job
 Page 198
titles or functions. Testing as many lists as possible makes sense
because you never know until you test which list will pull best, and
the differences in results among lists can be substantialfar greater
than the inexperienced direct marketer may imagine is possible.
For more information on mailing lists, request a free copy of the
Direct Mail Encyclopedia, a comprehensive catalog of mailing lists
available free of charge from Edith Roman Associates, (800) 223-
2194.
''What's the Second Most Important Factor Affecting Response to
Business-to-Business Direct Mail?"
it's the offer, and a major error most business-to-business direct
marketers make is not spending enough time coming up with and
testing enticing offers. They just say, "Here's our product; call us if
you want to buy it," and that seldom works.
For example, one firm selling sales training programs to
associations was getting a mediocre response from sending out
letters saying, "If you'd like us to give a workshop or seminar at
your next meeting, call us." What to do? The owner of the firm
decided to try a stronger offer. In examining his selling process, he
realized he was already giving away a valuable demo tape of his
program to potential clients; why not highlight this in the sales
letter? He added a headline that said, "You Have Been Selected to
Receive a Free Audiocassette on Selling in a Soft Economy." Letter
copy was rewritten to stress the free, no obligation offer of the
audiocassette.
As a rule, you will generate maximum response in lead-generating
mailings by stressing an attractive soft offer, such as a free booklet
or report, and selling the value of the bait piece in your copy. See
Chapters 5 and 6 for instructions on how to create winning direct
mail offers, both soft and hard.
"What Is the Biggest Mistake Clients Make When Doing a Direct
Mailing?"
Many clients have an unrealistic expectation that a single letter or
package will solve all their problems, and that the initial theme,
format, list, and offer they come up with for the first effort will be
the best one. As
 Page 199
a result they do one mailing, get mediocre results, proclaim "Direct
mail doesn't work for us," abandon the whole notion of doing direct
mail, and go back to their ineffective trade show exhibits and
image ads that also don't work.
The smart client realizes that (1) the first mailing is really only a
test; (2) based on the test results, the mailing can be gradually
modified to increase response to the point where it is profitable;
and (3) it will probably take many mailings, many letters, and
many contacts to penetrate the market; therefore, an integrated
campaign should be planned rather than a single mailing or
promotion. As my colleague Dan Kennedy points out, if prospects
are worth mailing to once, they're probably worth mailing to ten
times.
It's a mistake, for most selling situations, to expect one mailing to
do the whole job. Often a series of mailings is required to penetrate
the market. In magazine subscription renewals, for example, almost
no publisher sends just one renewal notice. Most send a series of
four, five, or six letters, each of which brings more renewals and
profits to the publisher.
Another mistake is to let direct mail stand alone. If you create a
great free booklet offer that works well in direct mail, why not also
try it as a print ad or a press release? Or present it as a paper at
your industry's professional meeting or annual conference?
Marketing synergythe idea that the cumulative effect of various
promotions is greater than the sum of their individual
effectivenessis a correct notion, in my experience.
Do you want to be successful in direct mail? Then test. Test lists.
Test offers. Test sales appeals. Test product A versus product B, or
service A versus service B. Test formats. Test copy. Don't bet
everything on one mailing. It seldom works that way.
"Which Works Besta Letter, Package, or Self-Mailer?"
This is a tough one, and the right answer is, "It depends." On what?
On the market, the list, the offer, and the product. However, you
need more pragmatic advice than that. You want to select the right
format and get a good response.
Let's start with the question of whether to use a self-mailer or a
letter in an envelope. As a rule, a letter in an envelope with a reply
card (and with or without another enclosure, such as a brochure)
will gen-
 Page 200
erally, but not always, outpull a self-mailer. In my experience, the
letter in an envelope with reply card outpulls the self-mailer about
70 to 80 percent of the time.
Does this mean you never use a self-mailer? No. But when you are
doing a first-time mailing for a new product or service, it's better to
start with the proven, time-tested package of an outer envelope,
sales letter, brochure, and reply card. This format has the best
chance of success.
Once you have achieved success with the letter package, you can
then test a letter and reply card without the enclosed brochure. Or
test a self-mailer. Or a postcard. Or some other nonstandard format.
But make sure you first prove that direct mail, using the standard
package, will work for the product. That way, if the self-mailer
doesn't pull, you know it's the format, not the product or offer. If
you had started with the self-mailer and didn't get a good response,
you wouldn't know whether it's the product or the offer or the
format.
The reason people want to use self-mailers is primarily one of cost:
Self-mailers cost less than letter packages. An economical format,
self-mailers save money, and especially in today's economy, there
is a growing concern for keeping promotional costs low. On the
other hand, you must ask yourself if you are really saving money
by using inexpensive postcards or self-mailers if they do not pull as
well as letters or packages. A cheap mailing that fails to generate
response is really expensive, when you think about it.
Letter packages generally outpull self-mailers, but the increased
response is not always great enough to pay the additional cost of
sending a full-blown direct mail package. In such cases, you make
your choice depending on your goals. If you want maximum
penetration of the market regardless of the cost per lead or return
on dollars spent, you use the package format because it generates
the highest gross response. On the other hand, if you are concerned
with the ratio of sales made to dollars spent, a self-mailer may be
the best choice if a package is too costly. A good example is
seminars: most seminar and conference promoters use self-mailers
because the response rate to such mailings is so low (typically one-
quarter to one percent) that they can only make a profit using the
lower-cost self-mailer.
One colleague who ran a major seminar operation for many years
told me another reason that self-mailers are used to promote
seminars is the pass-along factor. People who receive a self-mailer
and are not
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the right prospect for the product or service tend to pass it along to
others in their company who might be interested. But people who
receive a letter and are not the right prospect for the product or
service tend to rip up the letter and throw it away instead of passing
it along. Therefore, if you are not certain you are mailing to the
right person at the prospect company, and you hope to have your
material passed along to the right person, you might consider a
self-mailer instead of a letter.
Will the above guidelines always hold true? No. The decision of
whether to use a self-mailer or a standard direct mail package
largely depends on economics, and as direct mail production costs
and postage continue to skyrocket, the standard direct mail
packageespecially the larger packages used in mail-order selling,
with their big brochures and multipage sales lettersbecome
increasingly too costly.
The skyrocketing costs of postage and production have already had
a major impact on mail-order entrepreneurs. For example, in the
book field, where it was once possible to profitably sell a $20 book
through direct mail, it no longer is. In fact, it's tough to make a
profit on any item sold through direct mail that costs less than $50.
In magazine subscription promotion, the standard direct mail
package (outer envelope, four-page sales letter, brochure, lift letter,
order form, and business reply envelope) was always the format of
choice. Now, a specific type of self-mailer, the double postcard, is
beating the standard direct mail package in many tests for many
publications. So, while packages are traditionally a better choice
than self-mailers, they aren't always.
"Should We Personalize Our Mailings?"
Again, it depends on the audience, the list, the offer, and the
product or service. Still, I can provide a few suggestions that may
be helpful.
As a rule, the higher up the prospect is on the corporate ladder, and
the larger the company, the more it pays to personalize. Therefore,
if a client were mailing to Chief Financial Officers at Fortune 500
firms, I would probably recommend personalization. If the client
were mailing to process engineers at manufacturing companies, I
would say that it would not be necessary to personalize.
Also, keep in mind that there are degrees of personalization. You
can personalize every element of a packagethe outer envelope,
letter, reply card (I have even received mailings with my name
imprinted on brochures
 Page 202
and posters!) or just some of the elements. If you are targeting an
audience that is upscale or high-level, and you do not want your
mailing to look like "direct mail," the most important element to
personalize is the outer envelope.
Some mailings seem to call for a personalized approach more than
others, based on their theme or appeal. For instance, if you're doing
a mailing to build membership to an organization, it's difficult to
say "You have been personally selected because of your
qualifications and education for membership in our society" in a
letter that begins "Dear Friend."
Personalization almost always increases response, but the increase
in response is not always high enough to justify the extra cost.
That's why personalization is another element of the mailing that is
worth testing. Another factor that determines whether you can
personalize is the size and shape of the list. If you have a small list
of only a few hundred prospects stored on a floppy disk, and you
have in-house computer capabilities, personalization may be so
cheap and easy that you personalize all letters to this group. On the
other hand, if you have a large list that is available only on labels
and not on computer disk, the cost, time, and effort of entering the
names into a computer system or typing labels by hand may be
prohibitive.
For more information on whether and how to personalize direct
mail, request a free copy of the booklet Should I Personalize?
available from Fala Direct Marketing, 70 Marcus Drive, Melville,
NY 11747, (516) 694-1919.
"Should the Outer Envelope Be Blank or Have a Teaser on It?"
Next to the mailing list and the offer, a teaser is one of the most
worthwhile items to test. Use of a teaser often will increase
response, sometimes substantially. In some cases, adding a teaser
won't make any difference. In many other instances, adding a teaser
will actually lower response, and you'd be better off using a plain
envelope. The most amazing thing is you can never predict this in
advance. You have to test.
What is the function of an outer envelope teaser? Some
experienced mailers would tell you, "That's obviousit's to get the
outer envelope opened." That sounds logical, doesn't it? But wait.
Don't you open all
 Page 203
envelopes that look like personal mail? Yes, most people do. So to
get the outer envelope opened, you really don't need a teaser; just
make your outer envelope look like personal or professional
correspondence.
This means the address of the recipient is typed directly on the
envelope, a first-class stamp or metered postage (not a preprinted
indicia) is affixed, and there is no company logo or promotional
message on the envelopejust the return address in plain type on the
reverse side or upper-left corner. When going "teaserless," the idea
is to make your mailing piece look as much like regular mail (not
direct mail) as possible. And in fact, this approach is frequently
successful and should be considered as one of your test approaches.
If you can get the recipient to open the outer envelope without
using a teaser, then what purpose do teasers serve? Bob Matheo, a
successful direct mail writer, says that the purpose of the teaser is
not just to get the outer envelope opened but to create a positive
expectation on the part of the reader for what is inside. A good
teaser arouses curiosity, or promises a benefit, or makes an
attractive offeran offer the prospect "can't refuse." You don't want
prospects just to open the envelope; you want them to tear into it
because they're so eager they can't wait to see what's inside.
Should you use a teaser? See if you can come up with a teaser you
think will make the prospect curious or eager to read further. If you
can come up with such a teaser, use it. If not, if you feel your teaser
isn't terribly powerful or intriguing, drop it and use a plain
envelope. Don't feel you have failed if you can't come up with a
great teaser, or that it's a bad idea to use a teaserless envelope.
Quite the opposite is true: The plain envelope will typically outpull
a teaser unless the teaser is really great.
And even with a great teaser, the teaser envelope is not the sure
winner. Richard Armstrong tells of a clever direct mail package he
wrote based on the theme of an ancient Indian curse. The teaser,
"Ancient Indian Curse Inside," tied in beautifully with the theme of
the letter. Everyone thought it would be a winner. But, just to be
safe, the client mailed a small test quantity of the package with a
blank envelope. Guess what? Both packages did well, but the plain
envelope outputted the teaser, proving that even a creative teaser is
not always better than that old standby, the plain #10 outer
envelope.
 Page 204
''Is It Better to Mail First Class or Bulk Rate?"
This is discussed in detail in Chapter 1. As a rule, for business-to-
business lead-generating mailings to niche markets and smaller
audiences (say, fewer than 100,000 pieces), first class usually pays
off, despite the extra expense, because of the higher deliverability
rate. (Much third-class mail is dumped by corporate mail rooms,
screened by receptionists and secretaries, or not even delivered by
the postal service.) When selling a business-to-business product
through mail order, where the cost per thousand of the mailing is a
critical factor in determining whether the mailing will be profitable,
first class is generally not affordable, especially with pieces
weighing over one ounce. Most mail-order marketers mailing in
large quantities (50,000 or more) use third-class bulk rate, not first
class.
"What's the Secret to Writing Successful Business-to-Business
Direct Mail?"
Copywriter Don Hauptman says: "Start with the prospect, not with
the product." Another colleague, mail-order expert Sig Rosenblum,
explains, "Prospects aren't interested in what you want, what you
sell, how you run your business or make your product. Prospects
are interested in what they want, what they need, what they fear,
what's in it for them."
Many manufacturers write what is known in the trade as
manufacturer copy. Their letters typically begin as follows:
Dear Plant Engineer:
The Gillard TBV-100 is a preformed acoustic dampening material of
construction fabricated to dampen acoustical overloads and minimize
 decibel output at maximum efficiency and with a low cost-per-square-
foot expenditure enabled by retrofitting with this material versus
totally new construction.
The problem is that the readers don't care about the Gillard TBV-100;
they care about controlling noise in the plant. If we follow Don
Hauptman's advice and begin with the prospects and their
problems, and not the product, we get a letter like this:
 Page 205
Dear Plant Engineer:
Do you need to control sound in your plant to meet OSHA standards and
protect your employees from noise overload . . . while at the same
time avoid the cost of totally tearing out and replacing the walls in
your manufacturing operation?
Gillard TBV-100 "Sound-Proof Wall Add-Ons" are the answer. . . .
Always start with prospects and their concerns. This is what
interests them. Business customers don't buy your product or
service because they enjoy spending money or like shopping. They
buy your product or service to solve specific problems.
To be successful in business-to-business selling, you cannot simply
present a product; you must first show how the product relates to
the needs of the prospect. This is a basic principle of selling, but
one that some technically oriented managers and marketers ignore.
"What Is the Best Layout for a Sales Letter?"
Ted Kikoler, one of the leading direct mail designers in North
America, offers these guidelines for typing and laying out your
sales letter:
Never typeset the body copy of the letter. Always typewrite it.
Use a serif typeface. Best is Prestige or Courier. The larger version,
Pica (10 characters per inch), is easier to read than the smaller one,
Elite (12 characters per inch). (My feeling is that if you are using
Word for Windows and a laser printer, you can set the body copy in
11- or 12-point Times Roman and the headlines and subheads in
either Times Roman Bold or Helvetica Bold.)
Indent all paragraphs five characters.
Use wide marginslong line lengths with narrow margins fill too
much of the page, making it look like there's more to read than
there actually is. A good line length is 6.5 inches, which is 65
characters Pica or 80 characters Elite.
Add one carriage return of space between all paragraphs.
 Page 206
Make the right-hand margin ragged right. Never justify it.
Try to avoid paragraphs longer than six lines deep. If you have a
longer paragraph, break it into two or more paragraphs.
Indent entire paragraphs you want to highlight by ten characters on
each side.
Always have the bottom of the first page end in mid-sentence. This
is an effective page turner and gets the reader over to page 2. Add
"over, please" to the bottom right.
Typeset the headline of the letter for emphasis. If you are not
typesetting the heading of the letter, set it off by putting it in a ruled
box or a Johnson Box (a box around the heading that is made up of
asterisks), putting white space around it, or using a second color.
The main body copy should be black but an accent color can be
used for subheads.
Make the signature legible.
Shorten the first name of the writer to sound friendlier and to close
the gap between reader and writer. Bill sounds better than William,
Tom sounds better than Thomas, etc.
When using a personalized letter, try to avoid using subheads,
especially all caps and centered above the paragraph. Do not
typeset the heading. Keep the logo on the front page. Use a blue
signature.
Underscore words that should be emphasized. A good technique is
to read the copy aloud and listen to the words you emphasize.
These are the ones to underscore.
Indent the entire body copy of the P.S. by five characters so the
letters P.S. stand out. If it's all flush left, it gets lost.
If you are mailing small quantities (say, a few hundred at a time),
you can print the letter without signature, then sign each one
individually with a blue pen. This creates a look and feel very close
to a personal letter. Signing a stack of a few hundred letters can be
done without much pain during the evening while sitting in front of
the TV.
 Page 207

"We Are Using Sales Letters for Lead Generation with Mediocre
Response. What Can We Do to Improve Results?"
First, target selectively and tailor copy to specific narrow market
segments. You'll do better by offering "desktop publishing systems
for ad agencies," "desktop publishing systems for printers,"
"desktop publishing systems for graphic artists," and for other
specific markets than just offering ''desktop publishing systems"
and mailing broadly and generically to small businesses. Review
Chapter 4 for a refresher on why this is so.
Second, if you do not now have a soft offer of a free brochure,
booklet, or other information piece, add one immediately. If the
only option your prospects have is to meet with you, speak with
you, or see a demonstration, and there is no material they can send
for, your response will continue to be low.
Third, if you do have a soft offer, beef it up. Instead of a free
brochure, create and offer a free guide or report on "How to Select
the Right Voice Mail System for Your Company." Make your bait
piece informative and specific, stress the offer of it in your letter
copy, and response will increase substantially.
Beef up your hard offer as well. Instead of offering to "have a
salesperson call," offer a free seminar on voice mail. Or a free
demonstration by phone. Or a free analysis of their current
message-handling procedures by a qualified communications
consultant. Chapters 5 and 6 will refresh you on the benefits and
uses of soft and hard offers.
"Do Pop-Ups, 3-D Mailings, Bulky Enclosures, Product Samples,
and Other Such Gimmicks Work in Direct Mail?"
They can, but often they're overkill. The advantage of a 3-D
mailing (i.e., one which contains a gift item, product sample,
videotape, or other object) is that it gets noticed. Ninety-nine
percent of the direct mail your prospect receives is flat, so 3-D
mailings stand out, gain attention, and get opened and looked at
more than a lot of conventional direct mail.
The disadvantage of 3-D mailings is the expense. A regular mailing
might cost anywhere from 50 cents to 80 cents apiece or so. A 3-D
mailing, because of the cost of the enclosure and the additional
postage, can easily run $1 to $3 apiece or more, and I have seen
many that cost $5 to $10 apiece.
 Page 208
So while 3-D mailings might get more attention, be more
memorable, and even generate more response, the question is
whether they perform well enough to justify the added cost. Often
the answer is no. For instance, one ad agency proposed to a client
of mine a dimensional mailing to 6,000 prospects at a cost of $5
each (excluding production). I pointed out that for that price, we
could send each prospect on the list a series of seven letters, and
that the fancy 3-D mailing was not likely to pull anywhere near the
combined response of those seven letters.
Would I ever recommend a 3-D or fancy mailing? Yes. One
excellent application is when mailing to a limited number of high-
level prospects. For instance, one client asked me to write a
mailing sent to 2,000 large corporations. As it happened, the
service being offered was one that was sound-oriented and could
therefore be demonstrated quite effectively using an Evatone sound
sheet or audiocassette. We created a demonstration cassette and
mailed it to different executives at these 2,000 companies. In a
separate package going to the CEO of each firm, we mailed the
cassette along with a Sony Walkman, on which he or she could
immediately listen to it. Overall response to this campaignwhich
was a series of three mailings to multiple executives at each
company, not a single effortwas more than 56 percent, generating
an immediate $5.7 million in sales (more than 20 times the total
cost of the mailings).
Another good use of 3-D or gimmick mailings is mailing to
prospects who are ''overmailed" (i.e., they receive a lot of direct
mail, are jaded toward it, and don't tend to respond). A 3-D mailing
can be a breakthrough in such cases, gaining attention where even
the most well-written letter cannot.
 Page 209

9
Postcard Decks
As postage and direct mail production costs continue to skyrocket,
many business marketers are taking a closer look at postcard decks.
In this chapter, let's review some of the fundamentals of the
medium and some ideas for getting maximum response from the
cards you run.
As you know, a postcard deck is a group of advertising postcards
mailed as a package to individuals whose names are on a mailing
list. Although some decks are "dedicated" (all the cards are from
one advertiser), most carry cards from many different advertisers.
The advertiser pays a fee to have its card included in the deck.
The Pros and Cons of Postcard Decks
The main advantage of postcard decks is the low cost. The cost-
per-thousand pieces for a solo direct mail package can range from
$600 to $800 or more, depending on the quantity mailed. (Some
business-to-business marketers spend $1 to $1.50 or more per piece
for fancier
 Page 210
lead-generating packages.) Running a postcard in a postcard deck
with a circulation of 100,000 typically costs $2,000 to $3,000, so
the cost is low$20 to $30 per thousand prospects reached. That's
about thirty times cheaper than a full-blown solo direct mail
package.
Another advantage of postcard decks is that the postcards are easy
to produce. They don't require copywriting genius, cleverness, or
creative design. Just about anyone, even those with limited
resources, can put together such a card. (Some decks, hungry for
advertisers, will even do the card for you at low or no cost.)
The third advantage is that postcard decks are inherently a response
medium, so if you're after pure response and don't care about things
like awareness or image, they make sense for you.
What kind of response can you expect? Approximately one-quarter
to one-half percent is common. With a postcard deck going to
100,000 names, therefore, this would translate into 250 to 500
inquiries. If you paid $1,200 to run your card in the deck, that's a
cost per lead of $2.40 to $4.80, which is tremendously lower than
solo direct mail. (On a %500-per-thousand direct mail package
pulling a 2 percent response, your cost per lead would be $25.)
The Down Side
Postcards are fantastically inexpensive to produce and run. They
generate loads of leads. And the cost per lead is much lower than
direct mail or print advertising. So why isn't everybody abandoning
direct mail and print advertising in favor of postcard decks?
Because there are several disadvantages that offset the advantages.
To begin with, many advertisers believe the quality of leads
generated from postcard decks is not as good as print advertising or
direct mail-generated sales leads. The reason is that the postcard
tells very little about the product or service because of space
constraints, so the response is from someone who hasn't really been
presold on the product or service. Whether postcard decks will
actually produce "worse" leads than direct mail or advertising for
your product or service can only be answered by testing them and
measuring the results. Another disadvantage is that there are far
fewer postcard decks than mailing lists available, so with direct
mail you can reach many, many markets postcard decks don't
reach.
 Page 211
Also, most postcard decks do mailings only two or three times a
year, so you must accommodate your plans to fit their schedule.
With magazine advertising, you can advertise weekly or monthly.
With newspaper advertising, you can target which days your ads
appear. With solo direct mail, you can mail anytime, and as often as
you like. This is why these media will never be replaced by
postcard decks, and why postcard decks are, for most business
marketers, a supplement to other marketing activities rather than
the main focus of the direct marketing program. There are some
companies, to be sure, that do all or most of their lead generation
through postcard decks, but these are the exception, not the rule. A
directory of postcard decks is available from Standard Rate and
Data Service, 1700 West Higgins Road, Des Plaines, IL 60018-
5605, (847) 375-5000.
Leads or Sales?
Certain low-priced items such as slide duplication, business books,
office supplies, and imprinted business cards and envelopes can be
sold directly from the postcard. Technical products, capital
equipment, and other higher ticket items cannot, and the postcard
should be used to generate an inquiry rather than solicit a direct
order in such cases.
Ken Morris, a direct marketing consultant, says postcards are better
for inquiry generation than for mail order. "Use card decks to build
inquiry files," he advises. "While only a percentage of these may
translate to direct orders, you can start to build a database of your
'affinity' groups and down the line, repeated promotions to this
database will yield ten times the order conversion rate as opposed
to rented lists."
Designing a Postcard
The main advantage of the postcard deck to the recipient of the
deck is convenience. You should therefore design your postcard to
maximize reader convenience.
For example, the postcards measure about 5 3/8 inches long by 3
1/2 inches high. When going through the decks, most people hold
them horizontally because 99 percent of the postcards are designed
to be read in the horizontal position (long side held horizontally).
Therefore, you
 Page 212
should design your postcard so that it is readable in this position.
Some advertisers try to be different by designing the card vertically
to force the reader to turn the card to read it. This only serves to
annoy people and does not increase readership or response.
Readers flip through card decks rapidly, often with a wastebasket
between their knees. They glance at each card for about two
seconds before deciding whether to set it aside for a second read or
to toss it in the basket. Therefore, your card should be clear, direct,
and get the message across in two seconds or less. Use a short,
direct headline with a picture of the product. Or, if you are
generating leads for a catalog, show a picture of your catalog. Do
not be clever or artsy. Be simple and direct.
In his book No More Cold Calls (JLA Publications), Jeffrey Lant
writes that a successful postcard in a deck must stress the benefit of
the product or service, induce immediate action, and qualify the
prospect.
Okay. Readers have set your card aside in the pile representing
offers they might have some interest in. You want to make it as
easy as possible for them to respond. How should you do this?
Business Reply Cards
First, I recommend using a business reply card permit so the reader
does not have to affix postage. Many entrepreneurs in smaller
offices do not have a postage meter handy and, while they may
have a roll of 32-cent stamps for letters, they do not keep 20-cent
stamps on hand (the first-class postage for mailing a postcard as of
this writing). So when I want to send in a card that does not have a
business reply indicia on it, I am forced to affix a 32-cent stamp
and waste 12 cents postage. This may sound like a minor point, but
I assure you if it is irritating to me, it's irritating to others in small
offices. Therefore, the front should be a business reply card, not a
"Place Stamp Here."
Space for Name and Address
There should be sufficient room for the prospect to fill in name,
company, and address. Although I prefer the "coupon portion" for
this to be on the same side as the headline, photo, and body copy, I
do see a growing trend to put a small coupon in the upper-left
corner of the front (return address and business reply permit) side
of the card.
 Page 213
Which is better? I vote for putting the name and address block on
the same side as the rest of the sales copy because it logically
connects the response device with the sales pitch. If prospects have
been persuaded by your sales pitch, you want them to pick up a pen
and begin writing their name and address. The name and address
block on the "sell side" makes this a natural progression. It also
allows ample space for writing.
Putting the name and address block on the BRC (business reply card)
side interrupts the action, forcing the prospect to search for the
name and address block and turn the card over. Also, putting the
name and address block in the upper-left corner of the BRC side
means taking it small to fit the tiny space, which makes it more
difficult for prospects to write in their information.
Other Details
Have one, two, or three check-off boxes so prospects can quickly
indicate what they want to receive. Include your phone number and
even your fax number in bold type at the bottom of the selling side
so prospects too impatient to fill out the card can simply telephone.
Some will.
If you are going for sales leads, make sure the postcard can stand
alone as both advertisement and a response device. For example, to
offset the cost of the card or the literature they are mailing, some
advertisers ask prospects to pay a nominal sum ($1 to $3 is typical)
to receive their literature or samples. But that means prospects can
no longer use the card as a stand-alone response device. They must
now get cash, money order, or check, type an envelope, and
enclose the postcard with payment. The convenience of easy
response is destroyed, and response goes way down.

The Offer Is Determined by the Price of the Product

We said earlier that response from a postcard deck is typically one-
quarter to one-half percent of the total circulation. But this can vary
tremendously, depending on the product and the offer. For those of
you selling business or industrial products, here are some
guidelines for structuring your offer:
 Page 214
If you are selling capital equipment or other expensive technical
products with long purchase cycles, use the postcard to generate a
soft lead. The headline would state the main benefit offered by the
product (e.g., "Reduce Energy Costs up to 40 Percent in Your
Paper Mill"). The copy would briefly explain the product and offer
a free brochure. The visual would be a photo, sketch, or diagram of
the product.
If you sell a broad line of low-to-medium-priced products, and
your catalog is your primary sales vehicle, use the card for catalog
distribution. The headline should stress the offer and value of your
catalog (e.g., "Free Electronic Component Buyer's Guide and
Reference Catalog!"). The visual should be a picture of the catalog.
If you have a low-priced product (less than $300), it may be
possible to sell directly from the postcard. But test cautiously. One
manufacturer of electronic equipment in the $79 to $400 range uses
postcards frequently and has tested offering products directly
versus a free catalog offer. He finds the free catalog offer gets
much more response and is more profitable over the long run.

The Six Elements of a Successful Postcard

In Secrets of Successful Response Deck Advertising, Bill Norcutt
lists the following as the essential elements for a successful
postcard:
1. A powerful headline. The headline should state a powerful
benefit ("Prevent Industrial Accidents!") and also make the entire
offer completely clear.
2. A clear illustration or picture. Don't be creative. Use a picture of
the product or the product in action. The headline and picture
alone, according to Norcutt, should communicate instant
recognition of, and understanding of, exactly what is being offered
and should get this across in one second.
3. A horizontal rather than vertical card. This confirms what I
explained earlier.
4. An overwhelmingly good deal. Especially if you are selling a
product directly from a postcard, the card must offer an
 Page 215
overwhelmingly good deal. This is typically accomplished by
offering a low price, special discount, small trial order, or free
demo or sample. In a lead-generating card, copy should
immediately communicate the high value of the product being
promoted and the free information being offered.
5. A wide range of response options. For a card seeking direct
orders, allow the reader to order by mailing the card or calling a
toll-free number. Allow the reader to pay by credit card, enclose
payment, or be billed. On a lead-generating card, have response
options for both a hard ("have a logistics consultant call") and soft
("send me a free catalog") offer.
6. Plenty of room. Norcutt warns that prospects will discard
postcards that force them to try to write their name in letters one-
sixteenth of an inch high. Leave ample room in the coupon portion
for the reader to fill in all information. Many cards try to solve this
problem by encouraging the reader to "attach your business card
here." But I've found business cards, especially if stapled rather
than taped, can fall off, and I have gotten postcards back where a
business card had been attached but came off. "Attach business
card," which works well with an ad coupon that will be put in an
envelope, is riskier with postcards because they are mailed with no
outer envelope and can be damaged in transit.
The Headline Is the Key Element
While all elements of the postcard design are important, the one
that can probably make the most difference in terms of results is
the headline. In Beyond Lead Generation: Merchandising Through
Card Decks, Robert Luedtke tells of a company promoting a
seminar on management and marketing of dental practices through
a postcard. They tested the following five headlines, with the rest
of the postcard being otherwise identical:
1. Build Effective Team Leadership
2. Big Marketing Results from a Small Budget
3. Increase Referrals
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4. Create a Unique Practice Image
5. Increase Patient Flow
One headline pulled double the response of the other four. Can you
guess which? It was (5) Increase Patient Flow. (Many people I've
shown this to guess 2.) Again, the copy and graphics were the same
for each card, proving that the right headline can significantly
improve response to your copy and that benefits generate more
response than features.
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10
Sales Brochures
At a recent Business Marketing Association meeting, one of the
speakers proclaimed that brochures are deador at least should be.
''Whenever a client asks you to do a brochure, try to talk the client
out of it," this speaker advised, saying that print is antiquated and
potential customers prefer on-line documents they can access
through the Internet.
But the argument that the Web kills print is flawed. The issue is not
whether prospects are Web-enabledindeed, many of them arebut
whether advertisers should force them to access websites for
product information vs. offer them their choice of printed
materials, fax on demand, web pages, or whatever other media they
prefer.
"Yes, I have Web access, but I don't have time to dial up the
Internet to look at product information; I'd rather get a catalog in
the mail or a spec sheet in the fax," noted one IBM manager at a
recent seminar. Also, the limited resolution of current PCs makes
promotional materials on the screen more difficult to read and
pictures less clear than in printed documents, which is why so
many people download documents rather than read them on-line.
At least for the immediate future, printed brochures and web pages
containing similar information will continue to exist side-by-side,
with smart business marketers giving prospects access to
information in the media those buyers are most comfortable with.
This chapter is your guide to creating effective printed sales
literature.
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Information Dissemination Versus Marketing Communication

Many business-to-business marketers, especially industrial
manufacturers, think of brochures as purely information. But a
brochure is also a marketing tool. Yes, its primary mission is to
provide prospects with the information they requested; if it doesn't
do that, they won't pay much attention to it. But it can also serve as
a direct response vehicle to move the prospect from ''merely
interested" to "ready to buy."
Many marketers don't do any significant amount of telemarketing,
direct mail, print advertising, or trade show exhibiting, but
practically everyone has at least one brochure. It's not surprising
that printing of marketing and promotion support materials is,
according to Print Media Gazette (Vol. 3, No. 1), the most rapidly
expanding segment of the printing industry, with an annual growth
rate of 8 percent.

The Next-Step Theory: How a Brochure Moves Prospects from

Step A to Step B in the Buying Process
As discussed in Chapter 1, one factor that distinguishes business-
to-business marketing from consumer marketing is the multistep
buying process. Most business products are not bought on impulse
off a rack or store shelf. They are carefully considered and
evaluated before purchase. This buying cycle can have many steps,
and one goal of business-to-business marketing communication is
to move the buyer one step in the buying cycle closer to a sale.
Let's say our buying cycle looks like the following:
Step A Step B Step C Step D
Step A: The prospect expresses some initial interest in the product.
Step B: The prospect studies and evaluates product literature.
Step C: The prospect requests a price quotation.
Step D: The prospect purchases the product.
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The brochure is obviously used at step B here. The prospect is sent
literature to review. The literature serves a primary function of
disseminating factual information about the product, although it is
written to show off the product to best advantage, so that the
prospect will want your product instead of competing products.
Looking at the diagram, it emerges that there are three ways you
can improve your brochure to make it a more effective sales
device:
1. You can improve the contents, organization, and clarity so that
step B, evaluation of the product based on printed literature, goes
betterthat is, so that the brochure gets read and helps strengthen the
prospect's interest in the product.
2. You can design the brochure so that it increases the response to
step A, which is getting people to show interest in and request the
brochure in the first place.
3. You can redesign the brochure so that you increase the
percentage of brochure recipients who respond to the brochure with
a request for more literature, a price quotation, an estimate, or
whatever step C is.
Let's look at each one of these tasks in more detail.
Swaying the Prospect in Favor of Purchasing the Product
The most obvious improvement to be made in a brochure is
content: the brochure fails to give prospects the information they
requested and need to make an intelligent buying decision. To
Terry C. Smith, communications manager at Westinghouse Defense
and Electronic Systems Center in Baltimore, Maryland, contentor
the lack of itis what separates a winner from a loser among sales
brochures aimed at the hightech market.
"The biggest single thing that improved our brochures was making
sure they had enough content, so the reader would go away
thinking he learned something," says Smith, whose department is
responsible for producing sales brochures to promote the various
electronic defense systems
 Page 220
marketed by Westinghouse. "At one time, our brochures were
glossy, pretty things without much meat. But now, when a prospect
finishes reading one of our brochures, he feels his time has been
well spent."
In one survey, when asked "What do you find inadequate about the
brochures you request on business products and services?"
prospects said their number one complaint was that they did not
contain enough information. The reason is that such brochures are
usually created by people who are not prospects for the product or
service. These individuals tend to concentrate on aesthetics
(graphic design and copy style), and they keep the content simple
and short (because they believe people don't read). Unfortunately,
they often err on the side of being too simplistic, and they omit
important technical information that the prospect is desperately
seeking.
To ensure that your brochures are not superficial, here are generic
outlines you can follow for the two most common types of
brochures: product and service brochures. Check your copy against
these outlines so that if you are leaving out one or more of the
standard sections, you at least know you are doing it deliberately
and not by accidental omission.
Product Brochure
Here is my outline of the sections that can be included in a product
brochure. They are listed in a sequence that makes sense for most
products, although you may choose a different arrangement.
I. Introduction: A capsule description of what the product is and
why prospects should be interested in it.
II. Benefits: A list of reasons why the customer should buy the
product (e.g., improves business results, saves money, increases
productivity, saves time, cuts pollution, conserves energy).
III. Features: Highlights of key features, including:
Unique features the product has that the competition does not
Features the product has that are superior to or different from the
competition
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Features the product has that competitors have but do not stress in
their advertising
Features that similar products also have but are important to the
prospect and should therefore be highlighted
IV. How It Works: A description of how the product works and
what it can do. This section can include the results of any tests that
demonstrate the product's superiority. (Note: Some advertising
experts would tell you to omit this section, claiming readers are
interested in only results and benefits. But many technical
audiences, such as engineers, are interested in how it works.)
V. Markets: Descriptions of the various markets that can benefit
from the product. For example, a wastewater treatment plant might
be sold to municipalities, utilities, and industrial
manufacturersthree distinct markets, each with its own special set
of requirements. This section can also include a list of the names of
well-known organizations or people that use and endorse your
product.
VI. Applications: Descriptions of the various applications in which
the product can be used.
VII. Product Availability: Lists of models, sizes, materials of
construction, colors, finishes, options, accessories, and all the
variations in which the product can be ordered. This section may
also include charts, graphs, formulas, tables, or other guidelines to
aid the reader in product selection.
VIII. Pricing: Information on what the product costs, including
prices for accessories, various models and sizes, quantity discounts,
and shipping and handling. Often handled in a separate price sheet
so as not to date expensively produced literature designed to be
current for many years.
IX. Technical Specifications: Electrical requirements, power
consumption, resistance to moisture, temperature range,
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operating conditions, cleaning methods, storage conditions,
chemical properties, product life, reliability, and other
characteristics and limitations of the product.
X. Q & A: Frequently asked questions about the product and its
usage, along with the answers. This section is optional and is used
to handle the presentation of miscellaneous information that does
not easily fit into the other sections.
XI. Company History: A brief history of the manufacturer, written
to show the reader that the product is backed by a solid, reputable
organization that won't go out of business.
XII. Product Support: Information on delivery, installation,
training, maintenance, service, and guarantees.
XIII. The Next Step: Instructions on how to order the product, get
more information, request a quotation or estimate, or take whatever
action is appropriate.
Service Brochure
When you are marketing a service instead of a product, you can use
this outline as is or adapt it to your requirements:
I. Introduction: A summary of the services offered, types of clients
handled, and reasons why readers should be interested in the
services.
II. Services Offered: Detailed descriptions of the various services
offered by the firm and how they satisfy client needs.
III. Benefits: Descriptions of what the prospects will gain from the
services and why they should engage your firm instead of the
competition.
IV. Background Information: A discussion of the problems the
service is designed to address. This section can offer some advice
to the client on how to evaluate the problem or on how to select the
right professional help. Such information helps the potential client
evaluate you as a vendor and also adds value to the brochure,
causing prospects to retain it as a reference piece. When they
consult their file in the future,
 Page 223
they find the brochure with your name and phone number and call
to retain your services.
V. Methodology: An outline of the service firm's method of doing
business with clients.
VI. Client List: A list of well-known companies who have used
your services.
VII. Testimonials: Statements of endorsement from select clients.
Testimonials are usually written in the client's own words and
attributed to a specific person or organization.
VIII. Fees and Terms: Explanation of the fees for each service and
the terms and method of payment. This section includes whatever
guarantee the service firm offers its clients. Fees and terms are
often, though not always, covered in a separate sheet or insert.
IX. Biographical Information: Capsule biographies highlighting the
credentials of key employees plus an overall capsule history of the
firm.
X. The Next Step: Instructions on what prospects should do next if
they are interested in hiring your firm or learning more about the
services you offer.
Pricing Information
The second most common complaint of prospects requesting
literature is that the inquiry fulfillment materials do not give any
information about price. For off-the-shelf products with standard
pricing, be sure to include a price list. For services, consider having
some sort of fee schedule disclosing project or hourly rates.
For custom products, systems, and other offers that require an
estimate before a price can be given, the reader should be given at
least some idea of the costs involved. For example, a brochure
selling power boilers had a graph showing approximate cost of the
unit (in thousands of dollars) as a function of size (the bigger the
boiler, the more expensive the system, naturally). While you could
not determine exactly what your boiler would cost, in a few
seconds you could get a fairly close idea. This is what readers want
and what you should give them, if at all possible.
 Page 224
Another way to give an approximate idea of price is to compare it
to something familiar. A marketer selling computer-based imaging
systems could not give a dollar price in literature because of the
variations in price due to models and options and customization of
software. So the price discussion simply stated the system "is about
the cost of a new compact car."

Designing the Brochure to Increase Response to Direct Mail

Packages and Ads Offering the Brochure to Prospects
Most marketers plan the creation of their sales literature and
advertising/direct mail promotions separately. You get better
results, however, when you design your brochures with the idea of
maximizing response to ads and direct mail firmly in mind.
"Ideally, a brochure should be organized like a good sales pitch,"
says Richard Hill, a vice president at Alexander Marketing
advertising agency. "Follow the approach a good salesman would
use. First, qualify prospects, then get them interested, then go
through the features and benefits, then give details about selections
and models. Learn the logical sequence the buyer goes through in
making a decision, then follow that sequence in organizing your
sales brochure."
The primary strategy for getting more people to send for your
brochure in response to ads, direct mail, and PR is to give it a title
that implies value. Examples? A collection agency offered a
brochure with only the name of the company on the cover. Ads
stated, "For a free brochure describing our services, mail the
coupon today." Few did. In reprinting the brochure, the company
reorganized the copy into a series of fourteen numbered points,
each telling how prospects could improve their collection results by
using various services provided by the collection agency. The
agency retitled the brochure 14 Ways to Improve Your Collections.
Ads said, "For a free informative booklet, 14 Ways to Improve Your
Collections, mail the coupon today."
This offer outpulled "send for a brochure." People perceive an
informational booklet as having more value than a brochure, so
more will
 Page 225
send for it. When an ad or mailing offers literature as a soft offer,
you can substantially increase response by retitling and redesigning
your sales literature to make it seem (1) more valuable and (2)
more informative.
Another example? Two accountants produce sales brochures to be
offered at local business meetings through small newspaper ads,
and in mailings to local businesses. The first brochure states, Lana
Kaplan, CPA, Accounting Services. The second reads, "14 Questions
Small Business Owners Commonly Ask about Reducing Their Tax
Payments . . . and the Answers." Which would you send for?
By now you get the idea. However, one note of caution: your
brochure must, to some degree, deliver the information promised in
the title, mixing in some useful ideas or tips with the sales message.
If you promise readers free, useful information, then send nothing
but sales hype, they will feel cheated and will be turned off. That
tactic will actually hurt sales.
What if your brochure doesn't take this informational approach and
is a straight sales pitch? Then use a title that still implies value but
doesn't mislead the reader. For example, instead of calling your
catalog a catalog, call it a product guide. I have a four-page mini-
catalog offering books, tapes, and special reports of interest to
business-to-business marketers. Instead of calling it a catalog, I call
it the Business-to-Business Marketing Resource Guide. Which
sounds more valuable: catalog or resource guide?
Or let's say you have a catalog of electronic components that
contains tables showing how to specify and select components for
various applications. Instead of calling it a catalog, call it the
Electronic Component Selection Guide or the Electronic
Component Buyer's Reference Guide.
As an alternative, you can always add useful information to your
brochures in the next printing, then stress this value when offering
them. Many brochures I get, and this probably includes yours, have
at least one or more blank panels or pages. Can you think of ways
to use this space better by adding some information of use to your
prospect? For example, a casino put the rules of blackjack on the
back of its brochure; this makes it a "keeper" for those going to Las
Vegas who, like me, do not know how to play. Similarly, a data
communications equipment manufacturer added a glossary of local
area networking terms to the back of its capabilities brochure,
giving that piece added value.
 Page 226

Redesigning the Brochure to Increase the Percentage of Recipients

Who Request More Literature, a Price Quotation, or a Cost
Estimate
The techniques just discussed get more people to send for your
brochure when it is offered in direct response ads and mailings. But
how do you get more people to respond to your sales brochures
after they receive them? "The purpose of a sales brochure is not
just to disseminate information," says Chip Chapin, former national
director of Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics. "You'd go broke
handing out that type of brochure. And brochures should not be
primarily for building image, either. Magazine ads can do that. I
believe the purpose of a brochure is to generate a response on the
part of the readersto get them to take the next step in the buying
process."
The first thing you should do is clearly identify what action you
want prospects to take after receiving and reading your brochure.
Do you want them to mail you an order form with a check? Call
your toll-free number with their credit card information? Contact a
local sales rep? Request additional literature? Send you a purchase
order or a request for proposal? The specific action you want to
take place after prospects receive and read your brochure must be
clear in your own mind, or else you will not be able to
communicate to the prospects what they should do.
Next, add these instructions toward the end of the brochure. Use a
subhead and copy telling the prospects what to do next, how to do
it, and why they should do it. I usually label this section with the
subhead, "The Next Step."
 The Next Step
Installing the FunFilter 2000 in your mish-mash system can control
emissions and meet EPA requirements while significantly reducing
your energy costs. For more detailed technical literature . . . or to
arrange to use a FunFilter 2000 FREE in your plant for 30 days . . .
call our toll-free hot line (800) CLEAN-AIR. Or write us today.
Many brochures are vague about the next step and don't spell it out
in this much detail. This may seem like a minor point, but you
would
 Page 227
be surprised. People are naturally lazy, and if you don't encourage
them to act, they won't.
Your call to action will generate more response to your brochure if
you give several options, instead of just one. One software firm, for
example, offers four different options:
1. A free on-line demonstration of the software via modem hook-
up
2. A free demonstration in the prospect's office
3. Thirty days free use of the product with no obligation to buy
4. Free attendance at regional half-day educational workshops
A brochure for an industrial product might offer more information,
ask for the order, or suggest a visit from a sales rep. A brochure for
a service firm might offer a free initial consultation, a free needs
assessment or other free analysis of the client's situation, a free
presentation in the client's office, or even free use of the service for
a trial period. For example, a company in my county that rents
mailboxes offers three months use free to new customers.
Finally, to get even more people to respond to your brochure, give
them not only a clear action step and specific instructions, but also
provide the mechanism or vehicle they can use to respond (e.g., a
reply card, questionnaire, specification sheet, check-off survey, or
other form of response device the recipient can complete and return
to you). This can be inserted in the brochure or actually printed as a
part of the brochure.
In its capabilities brochures selling process equipment, one major
manufacturer incorporates a tear-out business reply card into the
back cover. The card offers additional information on specific
products described in the more general overview brochures.
Another engineering firm, selling a motionless mixer, requires
certain technical information about the prospect's processfluid
viscosities, flow rates, pipe diameters, temperature, and so
forthbefore it can design the right mixer and quote a price to the
prospect. Note pads containing fill-in-the-blank specification sheets
are on every salesperson's desk, so when a prospect calls, the
salesperson can ask the right questions, fill in the sheet, and hand it
to engineering for an immediate quote.
When a graphic design firm was hired to redo the company's
product brochure, the designer suggested incorporating the spec
sheet as a
 Page 228
tear-off page in the back of the brochure, reasoning that it would
encourage prospects to take the initiative in requesting a cost
estimate and providing the necessary technical data. And indeed,
many engineers took the time to fill in the lengthy spec sheet and
mail it back for a quotation.
Nowadays, prospects can return such a form either by mail or fax.
Make it as easy and painless as possible for them to respond. One
company, selling an expensive product to a limited and highly
targeted group of prospects, enclosed a prepaid air courier service
label for the prospect to use to return the application form for the
service being offered.
Another solution is to incorporate into your brochure a tear-off
business reply card, similar to the subscription cards you find in
magazines. If your brochure is saddle-stitched (stapled through the
spine), this can be inserted as a separate piece. In a smaller
brochure folded to fit a #10 business envelope, you can make one
of the panels a separate business reply card.

More Tips for Creating Effective Brochures

Start with a Strategy
What's the purpose of this brochure? What should the reader come
away with after reading it? Do we even need a brochure? Answer
these questions before the first word of copy is written. Too often,
they are never even asked.
Assemble Visual Materials
Go through your photo files and assemble a collection of existing
visuals that can be used in your new brochure. One of the biggest
expenses for corporate literature is photography. Often, however,
many of the scheduled shots already exist in someone's files,
unknown to the person coordinating the brochure! A little digging
can save you the expense of duplicating photographs already shot
and paid for. Walk around the company and ask permission to go
through the files of those people who keep the best photos. Check
existing brochures and other literature for visuals that can be lifted,
and track down the originals.
 Page 229
Helpful hint: if you or your writer will be interviewing people to
gather information, always ask these people for visuals to illustrate
the points they are making. Even a rough chart or diagram drawn
on a sheet of paper can easily and inexpensively be turned into a
piece of artwork that can be used in the brochure. Ask people to
show, not just tell.
Tone Tips
Another decision to make is the tone and style of your brochure's
copy. Should it be serious and ''corporate?'' Light and breezy?
Friendly? Humorous? High-tech?
Actually, all good copywhether corporate or promotionalshould be
simple, direct and easy to read. My advice is to just write it in a
clear, natural, conversational tonemuch as you would a business
letter or an ad.
Don't try to achieve a deliberate "style," which will only sound
phony and alert the reader that he's reading "copy" rather than a
message from one human being to another. Above all, avoid the
"brag-and-boast" style that pervades so much corporate literature.
Just the Facts
The selective use of specific, factual information is the key to
producing a corporate brochure that is both interesting and
believable. Here's an examplethe opening paragraphs from a
corporate brochure for RKW Standardbred Associates:
From British Columbia to Florida's Gold Coast, from southern
California to tranquil Prince Edward Island, the Standardbred horse
 racing and breeding industry is a multibillion dollar business and part
of the third largest spectator sport in North America.
Attendance at harness tracks totals just under 26 million people
annually. These people wager slightly less than $5.2 billion on more
than 57,000 different horses that raced for $511 million in purses.
The lazy copywriter would have been content to begin: "Horse
racing and breeding is a big business in America. And RKW
Standardbred Associates is proud to be a part of it." Which opening
do you think is more interesting to read?
 Page 230

Future Versus Present

Another question that must be resolved is: Should the brochure talk
about our product or company as it is now or about how we will be
(or want to be) in the future? Should we focus on our current
businessor on our goals, dreams, plans, and ambitions?
Readers distrust brochures that spend more time gazing into crystal
balls than they do discussing the hard realities of today's
marketplace. At the same time, what better place to share your
plans with your customers than in a corporate brochure?
The solution is to write a brochure that's firmly grounded in today's
reality but also takes a brief peak into the future. As a rule of
thumb, I recommend that 80 to 85 percent of your brochure should
focus on current products and services, while 15 to 20 percent
should discuss products, goals, and directions that are likely to
come to fruition within the next three years or so.
Build in a Response Device
On the back page of your brochure, include the address and phone
number of your headquarters and all branch and regional offices,
including those overseas, as well as your E-mail address and your
website. After reading your brochure, prospects may want to
contact you, and I find it absurd that so many corporate brochures
and annual reports don't include an address or phone number.
In addition, you may want to include a reply card (either loose or
bound in) that readers can send in to receive a detailed bulletin on
any product or service mentioned in your corporate brochure.
Many people tell me they think a reply card is inappropriate
because the corporate brochure is for building image, not making
sales. Even so, some readers will have an immediate need for a
product or service described in your literature. Why deny yourself
a sale by making it hard for those folks to reach you?
 Page 231

11
Catalogs
A catalog is a comprehensive directory describing all the products
a company sells. The main difference between a brochure and a
catalog is that brochures typically describe a single product in
detail, and catalogs cover more products in less detail. The
brochure promotes an individual item; the catalog is a single source
of information on your company's entire product line. A brochure
is narrowly focused; a catalog is comprehensive.
Catalogs have several uses. By inserting a catalog in the shipping
envelope or box when you pack and ship products ordered by
customers, you educate those customers about other products you
offer that may be of interest to them. Catalogs can also be mailed
separately to your customer list one or more times a year to remind
those customers of your existence and get them to buy more from
you. To expand your catalog sales, you can mail the catalog
unsolicited to potential buyers whose names you rent from mailing
list brokers. You can offer your catalog, either at no cost or for a
nominal fee, in print ads.
Types of Business-to-Business Catalogs: Mail Order and Industrial
Business-to-business mail-order catalogs typically offer low-priced
or medium-priced items that a business would buy via mail order
sight
 Page 232
unseen. Envelopes, business cards, shipping supplies, gloves,
uniforms, safety equipment, signs, posters, business gifts, software,
computer supplies, office supplies, labels, books, videos,
audiotapes, and office furniture are some items sold via business-
to-business mail-order catalogs.
The catalog will contain complete pricing information so the
customer can place a direct order by returning an order form or
calling a toll-free number. Most catalog operations allow buyers to
establish an account and be billed, although some require payment
in advance for the initial order.
The business-to-business mail-order catalog is sent primarily to end
users, that is, to people who use the product or order it for their
boss or supervisor. So a catalog of business software would be
mailed to PC users. A catalog of office supplies would go to the
office manager.
An industrial or commercial catalog is used to sell technical
products such as ball bearings, machine components, nuts and
bolts, and a wide range of products used in factories, machine
shops, and other manufacturing operations. Often they are targeted
at the "professional buyer"a purchasing agent whose job it is to
purchase these products.
The purchasing agent has a direct telephone relationship with the
vendor and will typically make a purchase by phone call or by
issuing a purchase order. These catalogs often do not have pricing,
and buyers will call to get a quote before placing an order.
The First Impression: The Front Cover
The concept of improving readership and response to sales
literature by giving the literature a title that implies value, as
discussed in the previous chapter on sales brochures, also applies to
catalogs. A business-to-business mail-order catalog can look more
promotional, like a consumer catalog. But an industrial catalog
should have a title and cover design that implies value.
The title should sound official and important (e.g., "The Metal
Buyer's Guide to Specialty Steel and Forgings"). The cover should
either have a striking design or be made to look more like a
directory than a catalog. If the cover has the look of an expensive
directory, buyers will tend to view it as a reference piece rather
than sales literature. Some
 Page 233
who issue big reference catalogs put a cover price on their catalogs.
Although the catalog is still sent free on request, the cover price
enhances the perceived value of the material.
Speaking of cover price, you may be thinking, "My catalog is very
expensive to print and distribute, so should I charge $1 or $2 to
cover the cost and prevent people from requesting it who aren't
really prospects but just like to collect catalogs?"
My opinion is that you should not charge; the catalog should be
free. Although charging would eliminate freebie seekers, it would
also prevent many legitimate prospects from sending for it. So you
lose much more than you gain. If you get an inquiry from someone
who is obviously not a prospect, having a cover price allows you to
tell that person he or she will have to pay for the material.
Making It Easy for Prospects to Order
Industrial catalogs must make the buyer's job easier by providing
the technical data and specifications needed to order the correct
product. Graphs, guides, tables, and other devices that simplify the
selection process are critical. Often people ordering different
grades or types of a specific product are not sure which type to
order for their application. Or they may think they know what to
order, but they are actually not ordering the proper item and so will
be dissatisfied when they try to use what you send them. The
solution is to put selection guides in your catalog explaining the
various grades, models, or types, what they are used for, which
applications you recommend them for, and how to select them.
You should also include charts listing the sizes and weights of
different models in a series. By showing your full product line in a
single, illustrated table, you enable readers to see at a glance all the
sizes available, so they can select the size that fits their
requirements.
In many product categoriessemiconductors, for examplethere are
standard sizes or specifications to which all manufacturers
conform, and the customer can specify any manufacturer's product
in a given size or model. When one brand can be automatically
substituted for another brand, it is called drop-in technology
because you can simply remove one brand and drop in another. The
confusion for the customer is knowing
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which model number of your product to order as a replacement for
a specific model number of a competitor's product now being used.
A cross-reference table makes it easy for the customer to see which
model numbers of various manufacturers are interchangeable with
one another. Whenever you can convert long paragraphs of
complicated instructions into easy-to-use tables or charts, do it.
Visual tools provide easy reference guides and make your catalog
more useful to the buyer. The key is to make the catalog as easy to
read, use, and order from as possible. If a purchasing agent deals
with three vendors, and one has a superior catalog that is clear and
easy to follow and the other two vendors have complicated, hard-
to-follow catalogs, the purchasing agent will naturally tend to use
the easy catalog more.
Organizing the Catalog for Quick Reference
Industrial catalogs should be organized in a fashion that is logical
and makes reading and ordering easy and natural for the buyer. At
the same time, you want to organize your merchandise and present
it in the order likely to generate maximum sales. Here are some
ways you can organize your catalog:
Group products by type or category of product.
Feature your most popular items.
Feature scarce, hard-to-get items.
Organize products in sections according to the functions they
perform.
Group products according to price.
Group products by application.
Group products depending on where they fit into the customer's
process, system, or flow loop.
Group products by dimensions, weight, power, or some other unit
of measure related to size or performance.
List products by model or part number.
Organize your products according to alphabetical order.
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Determining the Type of Response You Want
You must determine whether your catalog is a traditional mail-
order catalog that buyers can order from without assistance, or
whether you need an industrial catalog that can assist the
purchasing agent but may require personal contact between buyer
and seller to facilitate the purchase of complex components,
products, or systems. Rule of thumb: if the ordering process is too
complicated to explain in the catalog, don't try to create a mail-
order catalog. Instead, encourage the buyer to call you for
explanations, pricing, quotes, or technical assistance.
Suggestions for Order Forms
A little-known but effective technique is to use not one but two
identical order forms. One is bound into the catalog or printed on
one of the regular catalog pages, and the second is loose and
inserted between the front cover and first page. The loose order
form falls out when the prospect opens the book, so it gains more
attention and encourages immediate ordering. However, if the
prospect is not ready to buy immediately, the loose order form may
become lost, or it may get thrown away. When the prospect turns to
the catalog later to place an order, the bound-in order form is ready
and waiting.
Add a line to the bottom of your order form that says, "In a hurry?
Simply complete this form and fax to [fax number] for immediate
action." Since most businesses today have fax machines, this
provides the prospect with another convenient method of ordering.
Humanizing
Many business catalogs include a one-page letter printed on the
inside front page. The letter provides an ideal opportunity to sell
your catalog as a whole or your company as a quality supplier
rather than merely promoting individual items. A letter also adds a
personal touch to what may otherwise be a rather impersonal, cold
book of facts and figures.
Also, many prospects are bombarded by technical literature and
may not remember why they requested your catalog in the first
place. A letter quickly orients prospects, helping them understand
what the catalog contains and how to benefit from these products.
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Another technique to generate reader interest is testimonials either
within the cover letter or on other pages of the catalog.
Testimonials are one of the most powerful advertising techniques,
yet few catalogs contain them. Testimonials are quotations from
satisfied customers saying how good your company, product, or
service is.
The best testimonials are not general, but rather they address
specific advantages of your products or concerns other buyers may
have. Some marketers sprinkle testimonials throughout the catalog,
using only one or two per page. Others group them all on one or
two pages. I think the latter technique has more power and impact.

Increasing Orders with a Strong Guarantee

In industrial marketing today, a strong guarantee of performance,
service, quality, or delivery is critical. People do not want to order
unless they know they will get their money back or receive some
other compensation if you don't deliver as promised.
Many marketers object to guarantees, saying, "Doesn't adding a
guarantee put into readers' minds the notion that something can go
wrong, alerting them to possible negatives they weren't thinking
of?" No, because today's buyers are not naive. They realize full
well the possibility of problems and are comforted by the fact that
you are prepared to stand behind your catalog and do something to
correct mistakes. A guarantee is critical. Use graphic techniques
such as a special border treatment or tint to make the guarantee
stand out.
Encouraging Prospects to Keep Your Catalog
An obvious factor affecting response is whether prospects
receiving your catalog keep it or throw it away. If you want your
catalog to be kept and referred to often, add valuable how-to
information and reference data that will make prospects want to
hold on to it.
What to include? Your buyers want to know: How to install
insulation. How to check valves for signs of corrosion. How to
select the right size mixer. How to monitor air quality. How to set
up a company-
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wide safety program. How to design an office automation system.
And so on. Give them how-to information that is genuinely useful
and answers the most pressing technical questions they have, and
your catalog will double or triple in perceived value.

Designing the Catalog

Today's prospects, especially younger people, are more graphics-
oriented than the previous generation. So your catalog should be
designed not only to facilitate ordering but also to look good and
convey a positive professional image. Avoid fancy typefaces. Keep
type simple and legible. Use readable type for your body copy, in at
least a 9-point type size. use subheads to break up copy and to aid
readers who merely scan your copy.
Use a number of small tables rather than fewer, all-inclusive ones.
Large tables of numbers intimidate the reader. Avoid technical-
looking, highly complicated graphics unless you are sure your
readers need and understand them. Use well-prepared photographs
and illustrations; they communicate better and give a quality
image.
Design your layout in two-page spreads rather than page by page.
This is how your reader sees them. Use color functionally to
describe how products work, highlight features, provide
organization, or illustrate products that need to be shown in full
color for maximum sales effectiveness.

Writing Effective Catalog Copy

Catalogs are sales tools, designed to generate either leads or direct
sales. But the copy in most business-to-business catalogs doesn't
sell. It merely gives straightforward technical descriptions of the
productsno advantages, no benefits, no motivation for the reader to
call a sales rep, mail a reply card, or place an order. Here are some
copywriting tips to help your catalogs rise far above this level.
Stress Money Savings
Saving money is the number one motivation for a buyer to order
your product instead of your competitor's. Your catalog should
stress cost savingson the cover, on the order form, on every page.
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In Radio Shack's catalogs, every item is on sale! Each item
description lists three things: the price off (in dollars or percentage,
the regular price, and the sale price). A catalog from Boardroom
Books shows a markdown on every book in the catalog; the
original price is crossed out with an X and the new price is printed
next to it in red type. An office supply catalog from Business
Envelope Manufacturers, Inc. announces "Lowest Prices in the
Industry" right on the front cover.
Give Buyers Confidence in Your Company
Business buyers want to be sure they are buying the right product
from the right vendor. If they make the right purchase decision,
they are heroes; if they make a wrong decision, they're in the
doghouse.
How do you assure buyers that they're making the right decision?
Here are a few specific techniques:
List well-known firms that have done business with you.
Use testimonials. Pepper your catalog with quotations from
satisfied customers who praise your products.
Make a guarantee. Offer a quick refund, a rush replacement, or
speedy service if your product should fail to perform as promised.
Give facts that demonstrate the stability of your company: years in
the business, number of employees, number of locations, annual
sales, number of customers served.
Show How the Products Help Customers Make More Money
Business customers buy products for one of two end uses: to resell
the products at a profit or to use them to operate their business
more efficiently and profitably.
Catalog copy should show readers how they can make money by
doing business with you. For example, "Telephone Selling Skills
That Increase Sales" is a better headline than "Fundamentals of
Telephone Sales." The first headline promises wealth; the second is
merely descriptive.
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Offer Something Free
Everybody likes freebiesespecially business executives, a group of
buyers accustomed to perks. Your catalog could offer buyers a free
gift in exchange for their order. And it should be a personal gift for
the buyer, not a discount or gift of merchandise to the company.
Popular gift items for business executives include pen and pencil
sets, clocks, calculators, mugs, ties, golf balls, T-shirts, and
watches. (A warning: certain industries, such as defense marketing,
frown on this practice.)
Show How Your Products Meet the Buyers' Needs
To purchasing agents, whose job it is to buy things for their
company, a good catalog is a valuable sourcebook of much-needed
merchandise. The more the catalog and its contents fulfill their
needs, the more likely purchasing agents are to order from itagain
and again.
How do you create a catalog that fulfills the buyer's needs? First,
find out what those needs are and fill the catalog with products that
satisfy them. Next, make sure your product list is broad enough.
Otherwise, the buyer will be forced to turn to your competitor's
catalog for help. Be sure to include a wide variety of models, sizes,
colors, and styles. Also, feature your most popular or hard-to-get
items near the front of the book.
Sometimes, the business buyers aren't looking for a specific
product. Rather, they're looking for a solution to a problem. If your
catalog shows how your product solves the problem, you'll make
the sale. For example, a shop steward might not be thinking of
ultrafiltration. He might not even know what it is. But the headline,
''The Smoothflow Ultrafilter Removes 99 Percent of Dispersed Oil
from Plant Wastewater'' immediately alerts the steward that
ultrafiltration can solve his oily wastewater problem.
Other reasons why businesspeople buy from catalogs: to save time,
for convenience, to feel important, to gratify curiosity, to take
advantage of opportunities, to avoid effort, to make work easier, to
avoid embarrassment, to be the first to try a new product or service,
to be exclusive, to avoid salespeople. Keep these reasons in mind
and gear your catalog toward their fulfillment. It's a good way to
make sure purchasing agents pick up your book instead of your
competitor's.
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Use Colorful, Descriptive Language
Product spec and tech talk don't move buyers to action. Persuasive
language does. It's colorful and descriptive, painting a picture in
readers' minds of what the product can do for them. For example:
Straight tech-talk: "The XYZ mixer is devoid of pinch-points or dead
spots where viscous material might accumulate."
More colorful description: "The XYZ mixer is devoid of pinch-points
or dead spots where viscous material might accumulate. Eliminating
sharp edges, nooks, and crannies prevents gunk and goo from getting
stuckand clogging up your pipeline."
Use Precise Language
Beware of language that is overly colloquial or general. You want
your writing to be conversational enough to win the reader over
without becoming so vague that it doesn't communicate your
meaning.
An ad for a microwave relay system began with the headline, "If
you thought microwaves were too rich for your blood, look again."
At first glance, one might think the ad has something to do with the
danger of microwave radiation and blood poisoning. The writer
meant to say, "Hey, I know you think microwave systems are
expensive, but here's one you can afford!" More prcise language is
needed here, something like, "At last . . . an affordable microwave
system for cable TV operators.''
Be Specific
Recently, a Hollywood screenwriter spoke about the secret to her
success in writing major feature films. "Specifics sell. When you
are abstract, no one pays attention." And so it is with the catalog
writer, specifics sell. Generalities don't.
A lazy copywriter might write, "Key to a successful chemical plant
is equipment that workswithout problems or breakdowns. And our
gear drive works and works and worksa long, long time. Put it in
place, turn it on, and forget about it. It's that simple." Sounds nice,
but
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empty. Exactly how reliable is the gear drive? How long can it go
without maintenance? What proof do you offer for your claims of
superior reliability? This is what the buyer wants to know.
The skilled copywriter fills catalog copy with specifics that give
the answers: "Continuous internal lubricating sprays keep our gear
drives well-oiled and virtually friction-free. As a result, there's no
wear and tear, and service life is greatly increased. In laboratory
tests, our system has operated 19,000 hours nonstop. In the field,
we have more than 25,000 units installed and not a single failure."
Many catalog marketers describe their product as "the fastest," "the
lowest cost," "the most efficient," or "the best performer'' when
they don't really know how their product compares to others on the
market. Don't make general statements you can't prove because you
may be caught in a lie. Even if you aren't, buyers distrust general
statements. Be specific. Say ''loads the program in 2.5 seconds" or
"price reduced to $495.95" or "detects moisture down to 3 parts per
million." Make specific, true claims, and people will believe you.
Use Descriptive Heads and Breakers
Don't settle for headlines, subheads, or breakers that are merely
labels for the product ("Gear Drive," "Series 2000 Hose Reels,"
"Spiral Ultrafilter"). Instead, put some sell in your headlines. State
a benefit. Promise to solve a problem. Mention the industries that
can use the product. Tell its applications. Describe the range of
sizes, colors, or models available. Give news about the product. Or
stress the ease of product evaluation and selection in your catalog.
Some examples:
A Quick and Easy Guide to Hose Selection
Widest Selection of Laboratory Stoppers from 1/4 Inch to 1 Foot in
DiameterRubber, Plastic, Glass and Cork
Tower Packing for Chemical Plants, Refineries, Paper MillsDozens of
Other Applications.
Color-Coded Floppy Diskettes Save Time and Make Your Life Easy!
Here's the Full Story . . .
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Make It Easy to Order
If your catalog is one of those monsters jammed with tables of
product specs, be sure to explain these tables to your readers up
front. Tell what's in the tables and how to use them to select the
product. Give simple procedures and formulas to aid in product
selection. Illustrate with a few examples. Also, make sure your
reader knows who to call for assistance or order placement.
Make It Easy to Read
Use short, familiar words. Short sentences. Short paragraphs with
space between each. Stick in underlines, bullets, boldface type, and
breakers for emphasis. A catalog crammed with technical data and
tiny type is a bore and a strain on the eyes. You can make your
business catalog effective and yet fun and easy to read.
Stress Benefits
What the product does for the reader is more important than how it
works, how you made it, who invented it, how long you've been
making it, or how well it has sold.
Use Product Photos That Demonstrate the Product
When people are skeptical, use your catalog to provide a product
demonstration in print. Take computer paper, for example. With
cheap brands, it's hard to tear off the perforated edges and
sometimes the printed document rips in the process.
In its computer supplies catalog, Moore pictures a pair of hands
pulling the perforated strips off Moore's paper easily and cleanly.
Kudos to Moorenot many others have thought of a way to
demonstrate a piece of paper in a photo.
Add Value to the Product
Nixdorf Computer's "Solutionware" software catalog offers many
of the same programs as other catalogs. The difference? Nixdorf
has created
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a powerful list of seven "extras" you get when ordering from the
Solutionware catalog. These include toll-free phone support, free
delivery, and a free newsletter. This list of goodies appears at the
beginning of the book and is repeated on the order form. Readers
know they get more for their money when they buy programs
through Solutionware, instead of another catalog or a computer
store.
Give the Buyer Free Information
Thomson's 83-page catalog of ball bearings and shafts includes
seventeen pages on how to select, size, and install the equipment.
Engineers will keep the catalog handy because it contains this
useful information. By adding tips on maintenance, repair,
troubleshooting, applications and operation, you can increase
demand forand readership ofyour catalog. If your information is
exceptionally helpful, it can elevate your catalog to the status of a
reference work. Customers will keep it on their shelves for years.
Help the Reader Shop
Compatibility is a big problem when selling computers and
computer-related equipment and supplies. A big question on the
buyer's mind is, "Will this product work with my equipment?"
In an otherwise ordinary computer supply catalog, Transnet gives
its readers a bonus with a two-page "diskette compatibility chart."
The chart lists the major brands and models of microcomputers
alphabetically, along with the specific make of floppy disk
designed for each machine. Uncertainty and confusion are
eliminated. The buyer can place an order with confidence.
Show the Results of Using the Product, Not Just the Product Itself
Day-Timers recent catalog of calendars, pocket diaries, and
appointment books is, as expected, illustrated with product photos.
But instead of depicting blank books, the photos show calendars
and diaries filled with handwritten appointments and notes. This
adds realism and believability to the catalog. It also shows how the
calendar or diary could help organize the reader's life and schedule.
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Turn Your Catalog into a "Shopping System"
A catalog is more than a book of product descriptions; it's a one-
stop shopping center for your complete product line. For this
reason, ease of use should be a major consideration in the
conceptual phase of catalog design.
In the IBM Cabling System catalog, the first two sections of copy are
"How to Use This Catalog" and "How to Order"simple,
straightforward instructions on how to shop with the catalog.
Another nice touch is that the price list is printed opposite the order
form, so the buyer doesn't have to search through the catalog to
find prices for the items being ordered.
Use the Appropriate Tone
"Catalog copy should be brisk, concise, stripped-down prose," one
expert told me. "Cram as many facts as you can. Use bullets,
sentence fragments, word lists. Don't waste time with fancy sales
talk; just pile on the description."
"Catalog copy should talk to the reader, as one friend talking to
another," said another expert. "Use conversational copy to build
sales arguments that compel the reader to buy the product. The
sales pitchnot a pile of technical specificationsis what counts."
Should catalog copy be in prose form or bullet form? Should it be
clipped and concise or leisurely and conversational, crammed with
facts, or written to entertain as well as educate? Though no two
experts agree, here are some factors to help you determine the tone
and style of your catalog copy:
Space. Obviously, this is the greatest limitation. If you have only
one column-inch per item, you've got to write lean, bare-bones,
telegraphic copy. Write the basic facts, and nothing more. If you
have a full-page per item, you have the luxury of writing a
conversational, ad-style sales pitch on each product. Keep in mind,
however, that length alone does not make copy better. Waffling on
and saying nothing is not good selling copy. Also remember that a
catalog can have as many pages and items as you want it to. So, if
the product can't be adequately described in the space available,
you should consider adding more pages.
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The product. The copy style varies according to the type of product
being sold. A catalog selling laboratory equipment naturally
contains some highly technical language, while a catalog of bridal
accessories has a warm, gentle tone. The complexity of the product
also affects the length of the copy; you can say more about a life
insurance policy than you can about a stick of chewing gum.
Purpose. A catalog from which the customer can order directly
must have complete product information and technical
specifications. Copy has to be clear, comprehensive, and to-the-
point. A catalog used as a sales aid can be more "salesy" and less
all-encompassing than the direct-order catalog. A promotional
catalog geared to whetting the customer's appetite will contain
benefit-oriented headlines and subheads, highly sales-oriented
copy, and sophisticated graphics to engage the reader's attention.
Remember, however, that no matter what the purpose of your
catalog, not providing enough product details can be a sales
deterrent. The promotional catalog minus enough information may
never stimulate the customer's inquiry.
The buyer. How sophisticated are the buyers? How much do they
already know about the product and its uses? How much more do
they want to know? A paint catalog aimed at professional painters
needs only to describe the color, composition, and other features of
the various paints. A catalog selling paint to the consumer would
have to provide more of an education in the basics: types of paints
available, pros and cons of each, applications best suited to each
kind of paint, plus tips on how to apply paint.
Buyer/seller relationship. If your buyers are already sold on your
firm and have a tradition of doing business with you, your catalog
can be a simple, straightforward description of your latest
offerings. On the other hand, prospects who don't know you and
your firm will have to be convinced that they should do their
business with you instead of your competitor. So a catalog aimed at
these buyers will have to do a lot more selling and company image-
building. The type of relationship you wish to have with your
customers will also affect the tone you use (e.g., warm and friendly
vs. formal and highly professional).
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Past experience. Measure catalog results to your best ability and try
to learn from past experience. If cutting copy from a full-page of
hard-selling prose to a terse quarter-page entry doesn't reduce sales,
cut the copy and get more items per page. If increasing each item
from a quarter-page to a full-page boosts sales 500 percent,
consider expanding all entries to a full-page and increasing the size
of the catalog. Remember, every situation is different.
In the final analysis, the best way to set the tone and length of your
copy is to know what works with your market and your customer.
Stress the Positive
You don't need to lie to sell. Every product has its good features.
Dig to find them and highlight these points in copy. If you can't
find enough positives, reevaluate carrying the product.
Never bad-mouth your own product in catalog copy. Stress the
positive features; leave out the negatives. Don't feel compelled to
discuss your product's problems. The competition will be glad to
do that for you. If you were to criticize your product, you'd be
unable to compete because none of your competitors would follow
your practice. Buyers would hear the negatives of your product, but
not of others. So they'd buy the other product.
There are three exceptions to this rule. The first is when everybody
knows about a problem. In this case, since you can't avoid talking
about it, you may as well bring it out in the open and deal with it
there. The second exception is when you've eliminated a problem.
Talk about the problem, then tell how you ended the problem or
improved it. This tactic turns a negative into a positive. Third is
when the negative aspect is offset by an even greater positive. For
example, a negative of your outdoor tool shed is that it's made of a
cheap-looking aluminum instead of the attractive redwood used by
the competition. But the positive is that the aluminum is
lightweight, easy to install, never needs painting or other
maintenance, won't rot, and lasts a lifetimeunlike wood.
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12
Press Releases
As portrayed in such films as The Hucksters and The Man in the
Gray Flannel Suit, publicity and promotion is a sleazy game played
by oily con men and corporate drones. Another perception of
public relations, generated by Entertainment Tonight and other TV
tabloids, is of a glamorous, high-powered career that consists
primarily of sipping champagne with sports and celebrity
superstars.
But these images are largely myths. Modern public relations is not
only a serious profession but also a scientific discipline where
objectives can be set, campaigns implemented, and results
obtained, measured, analyzed, and benchmarked against stated
goals.
Too many businesspeople do not realize that in addition to having a
low start-up costany organization or individual with a few hundred
dollars can gain significant results through carefully planned public
relationspublic relations is among the most cost-effective of
marketing communications vehicles, generating a higher return on
investment than telemarketing, print and broadcast advertising,
catalogs, and direct mail. Only the Internet is as cost-effective.
Why Conventional Press Releases Don't Generate Response
More than 99 percent of the press releases issued by PR firms and
corporate PR departments fail to generate significant response.
There are several reasons for this.
First, many corporate PR departments, and the PR firms serving
them, go about creating press releases in the wrong way. Namely,
they
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decide that they should be doing press releases, then look around
the company to see what's news and what they can use. Finding
nothing, but still having a quota of press releases to issue, they
write the allotted number of press releases on the most mundane,
non-newsworthy, useless topics imaginable. They mail the press
releases to the publications they think management would like to
see the company name mentioned in, then complain when editors
don't use their material.
What you should do is the reverse of what these PR departments
and firms are doing. That is, you should look for newsworthy items
of interest first, and only when you find one should a press release
be written and distributed. If there are no newsworthy events or
items to be found within the company, you create your own. I'll tell
you how shortly. When you do this, you ensure that every press
release has strong appeal to both the editors and their readers. This
is the best way to get editors to use your material.
The second reason most press releases fail to generate significant
response is that they are not designed to. Most PR professionals
view their objective as "getting ink." Generally, this means getting
the company and its products mentioned in as many publications as
often as possible. Their belief, which has some truth to it, is that
over time this builds an image of credibility and makes the
company more visible in the marketplace. But why settle for mere
"ink" when you can get leads and sales? This chapter demonstrates
the direct response press releasea unique type of press release
designed to generate direct responses as well as plenty of media
coverage.
Choosing a Topic That Excites Editors as Well as Readers
To get publicity in the trade press, you must write press releases
that appeal not only to your ultimate prospectthe reader of the
business magazine or trade journalbut also to the editor of the
publication. No matter how much appeal your message has to
prospects, they can't respond if they don't see it. They won't see it if
the editor doesn't print your story. And editors won't print your
story if it doesn't grab their attention.
At this point you might object and say, "Wait a minute. The editor's
responsibility is to the readersmy prospectsand my product is very
 Page 249
important to them. If editors don't run my press release, they're
doing readers a disservice." But you are not taking into account the
fact that editors receive many more press releases than they can
use. Therefore, putting together a story that is relevant to your
market is only half the battle of getting ink. Getting the editor to
publish it is the other half.
Seven Themes for Press Releases
There are seven story themes that have the greatest appeal to
editors and business journalists:
1. News
2. Interesting information
3. Useful advice
4. Controversy
5. Celebrity
6. Human interest
7. Timeliness
A press release built around any of these seven themes has a far
greater chance of catching an editor's eye and seeing print than a
release that does not contain any of these elements. How might you
build a story on your product around some of these themes?
News. The most interesting word to a trade journal editor is new,
and you are coming up with new products and services all the time.
Every time you produce a new model, new release, new version or
upgrade, send out a release announcing it as a new product.
Interesting Information. Editors and readers are fascinated by facts.
For instance, if your firm performs surveys of certain markets or
industries, release some of the more interesting findings in one or
more press releases. Drake Beam Morin, a consulting firm, does
surveys to determine the average number of months it takes for
professionals who lose their jobs to find new jobs; editors come to
rely on Drake Beam Morin as the source for this important piece of
data. As a result, the firm gets a lot of publicity from it.
Useful Advice. How-to information appeals to editors because they
know their readers love checklists, resources, free booklets,
guidelines,
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and other how-to-do-it information. If you can tell readers how to
do something to enhance their business operations, editors of the
magazines going to these readers will print it and cite you as the
source.
Controversy. Look at the positions gurus, editors, and columnists
take on issues important to your industry. If your views are
opposite, you can get a lot of press by going public with those
views and creating controversy.
Celebrity. Famous personalities are a bit more difficult to use in
business-to-business, but it is not impossible. As Sy Sperling of the
Hair Club for Men and Dave Thomas of Wendy's have proved,
making a celebrity out of the CEO is possible and can make a
company more visible. Perhaps you can use publicity to make your
company president a mini-celebrity in your particular industry or
market.
Human Interest. Although not used much in business-to-business
public relations, human interest stories abound in any company.
Can you find something to use hereperhaps an employee with an
unusual background or hobby or colorful past?
Timeliness. Editors like material that fits in with special theme
issues, is related to major industry events, or is in some way tied to
current news.
As you can see, any of the seven themes can make for an
interesting (and therefore effective) press release. I have used most
of them for myself and my clients, though I tend to focus on
interesting information and useful advice. These are the easiest to
do, editors love them, and they generate the greatest reader interest.
We'll look at examples later in the chapter.
Creating News for PR
More often than not, when you decide it's time to do some public
relations, there isn't much going on that would be of real interest to
an editor. So when there is no news peg or "hook," you must go out
and create the event, the story, the news, or the information.
Here's an example of how this was done for one technology firm
using controversy as the news hook. The company made a
technology product designed to conform to a certain industry-
accepted standard. Their competitors made similar products and
also claimed that these
 Page 251
products satisfactorily met the standard. In closely examining the
competing products as well as the detailed multipage industry
specification, the company marketing director discovered that
while his product did indeed meet all the specifications, the
competing products did not.
What to do? An editor will not print a press release from one
vendor in which he identifies his competitor's products and
criticizes them. Instead, the marketing director took the broader
view. Using the company president, a well-respected figure in the
industry, as spokesman, he issued a press release with a headline
something like this:
Most XYZ Systems Phony, Claims Joe Big, President of Joe Big
Technology
Says almost all systems fail to conform to ABC Committee Standards
for XYZ products
If you wrote a press release that just said your product was better
than your competitor's products, I doubt any editor would run it.
This headline positions the story not as a product comparison but
as an ''industry alert''a warning to buyers to check their XYZ
systems for conformance to approved standards. In this way, the
company positions itself as the leader. (Its product, of course, does
conform to the standard, and this is mentioned in the body of the
release.)
Writing a "Free Booklet" Press Release
The easiest and most effective type of press release is the free
booklet release. This release is based on the offer of a free booklet,
report, or other information. The booklet or report can be the same
bait piece you're offering in ads and mailings. Or if you don't
currently have such a piece, you can create it specifically for PR
purposes. The free booklet release has strong appeal not only to
your prospects, who want valuable information, but also to editors,
for the following two reasons. First, the contents of the booklet can
be edited and published as an article in their magazine. Second,
editors like to run short blurbs offering their readers free things like
booklets, audiotapes, checklists, samples, and so on. They view it
as a service to the reader and are glad to have your free item to
offer as a giveaway. Here are the elements necessary for a
successful free booklet press release:
 Page 252
1. A headline that grabs attention by targeting an important issue or
area of concern. The headline should also communicate that you
have a new booklet and are offering it free.
2. A lead that can stand on its own as a short article. Some editors
will print your lead only, without excerpts from the actual contents
of the booklet, then give the address where readers can send for
your material. The lead should be written like a short feature article
on the topic addressed by the booklet.
3. A body that gives a sampling of the useful information contained
in the free booklet. This can be taken as is or edited from the
booklet. Bullets can be used to separate the points. Do not use
numbers, as you might in a booklet, because editors might want to
change the order or omit some items. This section should be long
enough so the editor can reprint all or part of it as a short article on
the topic.
4. A close that tells readers how they can get your booklet. Invite
the reader to request the booklet by calling or writing. You might
want to put a "key" in your address (e.g., "Dept. P1"), so when an
inquiry addressed to that key comes in, you know it is from press
release 1.
Figure 12.1 is a sample three-page press release I used to promote a
booklet called Recession-Proof Business Strategies. It fits the
above criteria in almost every respect except that I charged $7 for
my booklet. This press release was sent to several hundred
publications, including business magazines, syndicated business
columnists, and business editors at large daily newspapers during
the height of the recession of the early 1990s.
I chose to send each editor a copy of the booklet along with the
press release because I felt it was impressive and would catch the
editor's attention. However, it is not necessary to include your
booklet to get the editor to use such a release, and, because it's
expensive to mail booklets with press releases, I normally don't do
it.
This press release was picked up in dozens of publications. Some
ran very short blurbs, others ran it almost word for word. The
release generated sales of more than 3,000 booklets at $7 each.
 Page 253

FIGURE 12.1 SAMPLE PRESS RELEASE

FROM: Bob Bly, 174 Holland Avenue, New

Milford, NJ 07646 CONTACT: Bob Bly (201)
3851220
For immediate release
New Booklet Reveals 14 Proven Strategies for
Keeping Businesses Booming in a Bust Economy
New Milford, NJWhile some companies struggle to
survive in today's sluggish business environment,
many are doing better than ever largely because they
have mast
That's the opinion of Bob Bly, an independent
marketing consultant and author of the just-
published booklet, Recession-Proof Business
Strategies: 14 Winning Methods to Sell Any Product
or Service in a Down Economy.
"Many businesspeople fear a recession or soft
economy because, when the economy is weak, their
clients and customers cut back on spending," says
Bly. "To survive in such a marketplace, you need to
develop recession marketing strategies that help you
retain your current accounts and keep those
customers buying. You also need to master
marketing techniques that will win you new clients
or customers to replace any business you may have
lost because of the increased competition that is
typical of a recession."
Among the recession-fighting business strategies Bly
outlines in his new booklet:
Reactivate dormant accounts. An easy way to get
more business is to simply call past clients or
customerspeople you served at one time but are not
actively working for nowto remind them of your
existence. According to Bly, a properly scripted
telephone call to a list of past buyers will generate
approximately one order for every ten calls.
Quote reasonable affordable fees and prices in
competitive bid situations. While you need not
reduce your rates or prices, in competitive bid
situations you will win by bidding toward the low
end or middle of your price range rather than at the
high end. Bly says that during a recession, your bids
should be 15 to 20 percent lower than you would
normally charge in a healthy economy.
 Page 254

Give your existing clients and customers a superior

level of service. In a recession, Bly advises
businesses to do everything they can to hold onto
their existing clients or customerstheir "bread-and-
butter" accounts. "The best way to hold onto your
clients or customers is to please them," says Bly,
"and the best way to please them is through better
customer service. Now is an ideal time to provide
that little bit of extra service or courtesy that can
mean the difference between dazzling clients or
customers and merely satisfying them."
Reactivate old leads. Most businesses give up on
sales leads too early, says Bly. He cites a study from
Thomas Publishing, which found that although 80
percent of sales to businesses are made on the fifth
call, only one out of ten salespeople calls beyond
three times. Concludes Bly: "You have probably not
followed up on leads diligently enough, and the new
business you need may already be right in your
prospect files." He sa
To receive a copy of Bly's booklet, Recession-Proof
Business Strategies, send $8 ($7 plus $1 shipping
and handling) to: Bob Bly, Dept. 109, 174 Holland
Avenue, New Milford, NJ 07646. Cash, money
orders, and checks (payable to Bob Bly) accepted.
(Add $1 for Canadian orders.)
Bob Bly, an independent copywriter and consultant
based in New Milford, NJ, specializes in business-
to-business, hi-tech, and direct response marketing.
He is the author of eighteen books, including How to
Promote Your Own Business (New American
Library) and The Copywriter's Handbook (Henry
Holt). A frequent speaker and seminar leader, Mr.
Bly speaks nationwide on the topic of how to market
successfully in a recession or soft economy.
 Page 255
The release below (Figure 12.2) was done to generate inquiries for
my consulting and copywriting services and to promote my name
as an expert in the specific field of software marketing. It was sent
to about a hundred publications, some general advertising and
marketing journals, some magazines specifically about marketing
computers and software. The release was picked up by six
publications and generated more than 150 requests for the tip sheet.
The tip sheet was nothing more than a reprint of a two-page article
I had written on how to market software.

FIG. 12.2 SAMPLE TIP SHEET PRESS RELEASE

FROM: Bob Bly, 174 Holland Avenue, New

Milford, NJ 07646 CONTACT: Bob Bly (201)
3851220
For immediate release
New Tip Sheet Shows Established and Start-up
Software Producers How to Market and Promote
Their Products Effectively
New Milford, NJWith the glut of software products
flooding the marketplace, it's essential to produce
mailings, brochures, ads, and other printed materials
that quickly, clearly, and dramatically communicate
the key functions and benefits of your software to
potential buyers.
That's the opinion of Robert W. Bly, a New Milford,
NJ-based consultant specializing in software
marketing and promotion. He is also the author of a
new tip sheet, "How to Sell Software," which
presents advice on how both established and start-up
software producers can effectively advertise,
promote, and market software for PCs, mainframes,
and minicomputers.
One of the most difficult marketing decisions facing
software sellers, according to Bly, is whether to use a
one-step or two-step marketing approachthat is,
whether to sell the product via mail order directly
from the ad or direct mail piece, or instead to
generate a sales lead to be followed up by mailing a
brochure or sending a salesperson for a face-to-face
meeting.
 Page 256

"PC software products in the $59 to $299 price range

are good candidates for one-step mail-order selling,"
advises Bly. "In the $399 to $899 price range, you
may want to test a one-step against a two-step
approach and see which works best." And at $1,000
and up, says Bly, the two-step lead-generating
method is best. "Few people will send payment for a
$1,999 software package without some extra
convincing by a salesperson, free trial, or demo
diskette," he notes.
Some additional software marketing tips from the
fact sheet:
Early in your ad copy, tell the prospective purchaser
what type or category of software you are selling.
"People are usually in the market for a product to
handle one of the known, identifiable, major
applicationsproject management, word processing,
accounts payable," says Bly.
Talk in terms the reader can visualize. Instead of
writing "2,400 bps modem,'' say ''The SuperSpeedy
modem transmits data at a rate of 2,400 bits per
secondabout seven seconds for a full page of text."
The headline or teaser copy should select the right
audience for the ad or mailer. For example, if you are
selling C compilers, the teaser copy might read,
"Attention C programmers."
One of Bly's all-time favorite headlines is from a
small black-and-white display ad for Winterhalter
Incorporated, a manufacturer of coax boards and
controllers that enable micro-to-mainframe
communication. The headline reads, "Link 8 PCs to
Your MainframeOnly $2,395." Says Bly, "Computer
magazines are filled with clever ad headlines that
give the reader no idea whatsoever what the product
is or who it is for. This headline tells you exactly
what the product will do for you and what it will
cost."
For a copy of Bly's software marketing tip sheet,
"How to Sell Software," send $1 and a self-
addressed stamped #10 envelope to: Bob Bly, Dept.
105, 174 Holland Avenue, New Milford, NJ 07646.

You will note that this press release calls for the reader to send a
self-addressed stamped envelope. If your goal is to get the
maximum number of people to request your booklet, make it free;
do not charge $1 to cover costs or require a self-addressed stamped
envelope. Just ask them to call, fax, or write; you send the booklet
free and provide the
 Page 257
envelope and postage. The reason I asked for a return envelope is
that I have only one assistant. Having the reader provide an
envelope for us saved time in fulfilling the requests.
Another advantage of using these press releases is that you can add
hundreds of names to your prospect database at low cost. Not
everyone who requests the booklet is a possible customer or client,
but many are. As consultant Ken Morris pointed out in Chapter 9,
repeat promotions to an inquiry database will yield better results
than promoting to rented mailing lists. Press releases, along with
postcard decks, are the lowest-cost means of generating such leads
and building such an inquiry database.
Figure 12.3 shows another effective press release, one announcing
a new product. These work well with trade and many consumer
magazines that have "New Product" sections.

FIG. 12.3 SAMPLE PRESS RELEASE ANNOUNCING A NEW PRODUCT

FROM: PLATO Software, 401 Development Court,

Kingston, NY 12401 CONTACT: Richard Rosen or
Brian Rifkin, phone (914) 246-6648
For immediate release
Unique Accounting Software Package Can Be Easily
Modified by Users to Fit Their Business
Procedureswith No Programming!
Kingston, NYPLATO Software recently released an
upgraded version of its modifiable business and
accounting software package, P&L-Pro Version 6.0.
What makes P&L-Pro unique is that it's the only
affordably priced accounting software that can be
modified by the user with no programming required,
claims Richard Rosen, president, PLATO Software.
"Most low-end, off-the-shelf business software
forces you to adjust your business procedures to
accommodate the limitations of the program," says
Rosen. "As a result, you cannot get the software to
do things your way. Some high-end business
software packages are designed to be modifiable, but
these start at $10,000 to $25,000 and up for a
complete system."
 Page 258

P&L-Pro, by comparison, is a complete and

affordably priced business and accounting software
package that can be modified by users, even non-
programmers, to precisely fit their procedures and
operations. Base price starts at approximately $100
per module.
How P&L-Pro Works
Most business software, according to Rosen, is
created using complex programming languages, and
therefore can only be altered by computer
programmers.
P&L-Pro, however, was built using Alpha Four, an
easy-to-use database management system. As a
result, users can add functions to or modify their
copies of P&L-Pro directly, without help from a
programmer or software consultant.
The new version, P&L-Pro 6.0, features faster and
simpler bank reconciliation, check entry, application
of payments to invoices, screen entry, and statement
preparation. It also includes two new modules,
Payroll and Inventory Control, whichadded to the
existing modules of General Ledger, Accounts
Receivable, and Accounts Payablemake P&L-Pro a
complete business and accounting software package
that is fully modifiable by the user.
The Payroll module includes all state and federal tax
tables and features multiple pay types, unlimited
deduction types, and time-card entry. It is completely
interfaced with the P&L-Pro General Ledger
module. A special feature enables the user to print
checks for the new year while still being able to print
W-2 forms for the prior year.
The Inventory Control module generates an
unlimited number of sales and inventory reports.
These reports give the user an up-to-the-minute
picture of inventory by product, stock number,
location, or any other criteria selected. The module
handles purchase order entry, receiving, sales order
entry, and shipping. And, it can be easily customized
to fit any method of inventory management and
control.
` A new feature, the history screen, displays all key
data about any given customer or vendor at a glance.
This eliminates the time and effort of retrieving
customer and vendor data from multiple screens
located throughout the program. The customer
history screen, for example, includes all products
purchased, orders placed, invoices sent, payments
received, missed or late payments, and balances due.
 Page 259

P&L-Pro 2.0 with all five modules sells for $495.

PLATO Software can install the software, set up the

company's chart of accounts, and customize the

screens, reports, and menus for an additional fee. For
more information contact: PLATO Software, 401
Development Court, Kingston, NY 12401, phone
800-SWPLATO (800-797-5286), fax 914-246-7597.

Preparing Your Press Release for Distribution

The press release should be cleanly typed, with no typos or white-
outs. Type it double-spaced on plain white paper. Some PR
agencies send out releases single-spaced, but I think this is a
mistake. Single-spaced material is difficult to edit, which may
discourage an editor from using the release as the basis of a story.
You should type it so the last paragraph on the page ends on that
page; do not break and "jump" paragraphs to the next page. Many
editors will rewrite your press release and like to be able to cut it
apart with scissors, rearrange the paragraphs, and tape it together to
change the order of your material. You should print on one side of
the page only, never on both sides, for the same reason.
There is no need to use a special PR letterhead or to type the
release on your company letterhead, although if you want to do so,
it does no harm. I type my releases on plain white paper, with
information on where the editor can contact me or my client at the
top of page one (see Figure 12.3 for style). Under this contact
information comes the headline, typed in all caps and taking one,
two, or three lines.
Some argue that it is not necessary to have a headline on a press
release because editors will not use it and will make up their own
headline to fit the page layout. While it is true that editors almost
never use the headline you put on your press release, you should
still write one because that headline is what grabs the editor's
attention. A strong headline can make the difference between an
editor's reading your material or throwing it away. So always come
up with a powerful headline that contains an item of interest or
strong news hook.
For example, one company did a press release to promote an IBM PC
software program that did résumés, cover letters, and other tasks
related to finding a job. The headline of the press release, "Let
Your PC Find a
 Page 260
Job for You," attracted editors, although it probably wasn't used
when the stories appeared. The headline arouses curiosityhow can a
computer find a job for youand gets you to read on. After the
headline, leave some space, then begin your story. Again, see the
samples in this chapter for format. The pages should be stapled in
the upper left corner.
Mail the press release in a plain #10 business envelope, first class.
Some PR counselors advise including a cover letter with the press
release, but this is unnecessary and will not increase coverage.
Also, if you feel the need to explain your press release in a cover
letter, you probably haven't written your release clearly enough.
The press release is the story and should stand on its own without
explanation.

Finding Business Magazines for Press Releases

There are many lists, directories, and services for distribution of
press releases. Some companies publish directories of newspaper
and magazine editors, and you can type your envelopes using the
information in the directory. Some companies provide the names
on mailing labels. This doesn't give you telephone numbers for
follow-up. However, if you send out the free booklet release as
shown in this chapter, you won't need to follow up; your press
release will receive wide coverage. One advantage of labels over
directories is that labels are more current (editors move around a
lot). Some companies handle the distribution of the press release
for you. You send them one clean typed copy of the release. They
print, staple, fold, stuff, and mail the releases to the publications
you specify.
Some companies offer two or three of these services. One of the
biggest and best known of these companies is Bacon's. It sells PR
directories of newspapers, magazines, and TV and radio shows,
and will also provide labels or do the distribution for you. I use
Bacon's frequently and am satisfied with its service. For more
information, contact Bacon's PR Service, 332 S. Michigan Avenue,
Chicago, IL 60604, (800) 621-0561.
If you market computers and related high-tech products, take a
look at Media Maps, 130 The Great Road, Bedford, MA 01730,
(617) 275-4999. It is a comprehensive PR guide to computer
publications.
 Page 261

13
Feature Articles
The problem with advertising and direct mail is that they are
expensive. The cost of direct mail especially has skyrocketed in
recent years. And print advertising has always been expensive,
often prohibitively so for the small- or medium-sized marketer. The
alternatives are to use such low-cost advertising vehicles as
postcard decks and inquiry-generating press releases. Another
alternative is the planted feature story.
The planted feature story is an article written by your company or
about your company, the publication of which was initiated and
pursued by you as a means of gaining visibility, promoting your
product, and attracting new customers. This is a common practice
in the business world, and many companies are already using such
planted feature stories as marketing vehicles. This chapter will
explain not only how to write and place such stories, but also how
to maximize their use in your direct response program as a bait
piece and an inquiry-generating device.
 Page 262

Selecting a Topic
The first step in marketing your product or service directly through
planted feature stories is to determine what topic or topics should
be the focus of the articles. To be successful, the article must be
written on a topic that: (1) is of interest to your potential customers,
(2) fills a gap in the reader's knowledge (tells them something they
want or need to know), and (3) is related to your product or service
in such a way that publication of the article helps promote your
product or service.
Feature articles can have titles and contents similar to the free
booklets, special reports, and other bait pieces we talked about in
Chapter 5. Examples include:
Specifying motionless mixers in process applications
How to improve your collection efforts
Three steps to creating a winning business plan
How to run a successful employee awards program
Seven questions to ask before you invest in a DP training program
Choosing business software for accounts payable and accounts
receivable
When you pick a topic of interest to your potential customers,
organize it as a series of points, steps, or ideas, and then give it an
attractive title similar to the previous examples, you convert your
article from "just an article" to a powerful direct-response bait
piece that can be offered in ads, direct mail, press releases,
postcards, and other promotions to attract prospects like a magnet.
When offering an article reprint as a bait piece, refer to it as a tip
sheet, not an article reprint. Tip sheet sounds more important and
has higher perceived value. Or you can reset the text of the article
and print it as a booklet. You can then offer it as a free booklet
rather than an article reprint. Again, free booklet is a stronger offer
than free article reprint. Another variation is to take one or more
articles, create a title page, and put them in a binder or report cover.
This allows you to offer your article reprints as a special report. By
offering your article as a free
 Page 263
tip sheet, booklet, or special report, you can use it to increase
response to direct mail, ads, and press releases featuring the article
as a bait piece.
Here's a real-life example. Years ago I wrote a half-page article
presenting thirty-one quick tips on how to increase ad response. It
was published in Business Marketing as a sidebar to another, longer
article on print advertising. Bob Donath, then editor of Business
Marketing, gave it the catchy title "31-derfully Simple Ways to Get
More Inquiries from Your Ads." I reprinted the article as a four-
panel booklet designed to fit a #10 envelope. The inside two panels
contained the article, reprinted directly from the original magazineI
didn't even reset the type. The Bob Donath title and my byline were
on the front cover. The back cover had my photo and an "About the
Author" bio promoting my copywriting and marketing consultation
services. My address and phone number were on both the front and
back covers.
I sent out a press release to fifty advertising trade publications and
another fifty or so general business magazines. This was a free
booklet release similar to the ones shown in Chapter 12. The result
was eighteen published articles and more than 2,500 requests for
the booklet. One article in Nation's Business alone generated more
than 400 responses.
To use reprints of your article as a bait piece to increase responses
to lead-generating promotions, give your article an attractive title
promising useful information and advice. However, one difference
between the article and the self-published booklet or report is that
the article cannot be promotional in any sense. It should not
mention your company more than once or twice, and the
information should be useful to the readers even if they do not buy
your product. For example, an article on how to maintain process
equipment should give maintenance tips that apply to many
different valves and pumps, not just yours.
How, then, does such an article promote your product or service?
Subtly. Each company selling a product or service is promoting a
particular way to do something: control fluid flow in a pipeline,
train technicians to safely operate nuclear power plants, access the
corporate database, mold plastic, or whatever. When you write the
article, you highlight your methodology or technology. If you're
selling an application development tool, you might write an article
on how to design database applications. Of course, the steps in the
article just happen to conform
 Page 264
to how your application development tool works. The person who
reads your article and likes your advice is now presold on the way
your product or service works and is eager to get more help from
you in the form of advice, service, products, systems, or some
combination of these.
Advertising expert Bruce Bloom calls this "creating a
specification." Your prospects read your article and follow your
advice on how to select, implement, or use a particular type of
product or service. They naturally come to you predisposed to buy
from you because you are the expert. And when the prospects
evaluate your product, lo and beholdit perfectly meets the criteria
set forth in your article. Competitive products do not meet all the
criteria, so yours is selected.
To promote a line of business software, IBM published an entire book
(really a big article) called Choosing Business Software. The book
set forth guidelines for shopping for and selecting accounting and
other business software applications. Naturally, the features and
functions the book said were essential in business software were
features and functions you could find in the IBM programs. The book
created a specification for the reader that only IBM'S product could
fulfill. Feature articles work much the same way. Choosing
Business Software could easily have been an article or series of
articles.

Writing the Article

When writing a feature article for placement, I intend from the start
to use the article as a reprint, so I am concerned with length. What
length is best? The standard business magazine or trade journal
page (7-by-10 inches), set in two or three columns of type, carries
about 800 to 900 words per page. That's on a page with mostly text,
not a lot of graphics. So a one-page article would be 750 to 800
words, or about three double-spaced typewritten pages. A two-page
article would be 1,500 words, or about six double-spaced
typewritten pages.
Keep these lengths in mind as you write if you want an article that
is easy and inexpensive to reprint. Most articles that appear as one
or two pages in a magazine are published without carrying over to
other pages, so the entire article can be reproduced without cutting
and pasting, and it fits neatly on one or two sides of a sheet of 8
1/2-by-11-inch
 Page 265
paper. You can make reprints on a good quality photocopier or take
the article to a print shop for small quantities of inexpensive offset
reprints.
So one reason to keep articles short is ease of reprinting. An article
that runs three, four, or five pages in the magazine will have to be
printed on an 11-by-17-inch or 11-by-25-inch sheet of paper and
folded, and that gets more expensive. An article that runs seven or
eight pages must be printed as a saddle-stitched eight-page booklet
or brochure, and that costs even more. Another reason to keep
articles short is that readers prefer short articles. If you can
communicate the salient points in one or two tightly written pages
instead of five, so much the better. Does this mean you should
never write a long article? No. Some topics might require more
explanation. Or perhaps you need photos and illustrations to
explain your story, and this adds to the length.
When writing, try to break your material into short sections with
many subheads, and use bullets and numbers to separate your key
points. There are two reasons why numbering points is especially
useful. First, it makes for easy reading. And second, people are
attracted to articles with numbers in the title (e.g., "eight ways
salespeople can spend less time traveling, more time at home").
As long as you fulfill the promise of the article title, don't worry
that the story is too simple or basic. It may be old hat to you, but
many potential customers do not have this information and can put
it to good use. I have written short, basic how-to articles as well as
longer, more complex ones, and I always get the greatest response
from the short ones.
Do not be afraid that readers know it all and you have nothing new
to contribute. People read for reinforcement as well as new
knowledge. You can impress them not only by telling them
something new, but also by confirming what they already know. If
you make statements about the best way to perform a certain task,
and readers already know and agree with your points, they will
think you are wise and will be more inclined to buy services or
products from your company.
When the article is written, go through it several times to ensure
accuracy and have several people proofread it. Some editors are put
off by a sloppy manuscript, and almost all editors at technical
magazines are concerned about accuracy. Numbers and figures
especially should be checked and rechecked.
 Page 266
Impartiality is a ''must'' with many editors. Remember, they are not
there to praise your company's products (although being published
in their journal can be as good as if they were); they're there to give
readers an objective overview of events in their industry. This can
be a particular sticking point in dealing with public relations
personnel, although most editors recognize the "one-hand-feeds-
the-other" usefulness of such contacts.
"We're certainly not prejudiced against articles from PR firms,"
says Mr. Rosenzweig. "We just generally have to make more
revisions to eliminate their tendency toward one-sidedness. We
want all the disadvantages spelled out, as well as the advantages."
Adds Mr. Dunn: "If an article is about storage methods, we want to
see all fifteen methods discussed, not just the ones used by the
writer's company or client."
Still, the fact that public relations people are generally eager to give
editors information and can be trusted to produce articles on target
and on time helps endear them to many editors. "We don't have to
chase after them," explains Mr. Dunn. "They understand our role a
little better than most people; they know how we operate; and they
tend to give us good service."
So, follow the public relations agencies' example and make
yourself available to editors when they call, follow the journal's
editorial guidelines, and deliver copy as promised. You'll put
yourself in good stead with people who are in a position to exert
considerable influence on your company's fortunes.
Some magazines will kill a feature story simply for lack of photos
or illustrations. Many others weigh heavily the availability of
appropriate graphics. These visual "extras" can be a deciding factor
in choosing one story idea over another. Even though the larger
journals may have illustrators on staff to produce high-quality
finished drawings, they often work from original sketches supplied
by an author.
You can get a good idea of how important visuals are to a particular
magazine, before you make your pitch, by scanning a couple of
issues. Note whether photos or drawings are used. If photos, are
they black-and-white or color? Is at least one illustration used with
every story of one page or more? If so, you should be prepared to
provide the same.
 Page 267
Otherwise, your article may move to the reject pile, regardless of
its other merits.
Professional photographs, while nice, are not necessary for most
trade journals. Straightforward, good-quality 35mm color slides
satisfy most trade editors. Some magazines will also take black-
and-white glossies or color printsan editor will be happy to tell you
what's acceptable.
Placing the Article
Now that you have a topic and have started researching and
outlining the article, you should think about where it should be
published. Finding suitable publications for your article may not be
as difficult as you think. Start with the trade or business
publications you already read. Chances are that one or more of
these covers your market and would be a suitable outlet for your
article. Next, see what your customers are reading. Magazines and
newsletters you find on the prospect's desk or in their reception
area are ones they subscribe to and read, so you can try to place
your article there. Third, check some directories. The one I use
most often is Bacon's Magazine Directory.
Some editors offer guidelines for potential authors, and it's a good
idea to look these over to make sure your story fits these guidelines
before you submit it. Some magazines publish these guidelines in
each issue; others offer them free if you request them. But the best
way to evaluate whether your story fits in with the publication is to
look through a few issues of the magazine. Take a look at the
different types of articles published. If the magazine does not run
case histories, and your article is a case history, chances are they
will not publish it; you would be better off going to a magazine that
runs case histories.
Also check to see if the magazine runs stories contributed by
vendors; some magazines do not. If all the bylines are from the
magazine's staff and professional freelance journalists and
reporters, your contribution will probably not be welcome.
Fortunately, you'll find many trade and business publications that
run articles contributed by vendors, and these publications will be
more interested in getting a manuscript from you.
 Page 268
How do you get free sample copies of magazines? If your company
is a potential advertiser, just call the advertising department.
Request that a free sample copy be sent along with a media kit. Say
you are thinking of advertising in their magazine. Do not tell the
display advertising manager or sales rep you are planning to write
an article, or they will be less inclined to send the material to you.

Querying
To query means to contact the publication's editor to ask whether
there is any interest in your article. Ideally, this is done before you
have written the article. That way, if an editor shows interest but
wants the article done a certain way, you haven't wasted time
creating an article that will have to be rewritten.
While some editors are open to phone calls, the best way to query
is with a query letter. This is a letter that outlines the article you
want to write and asks the editor if he or she would be interested in
reviewing a full manuscript for possible publication.
How to write a good query letter? The first step is to address it to a
specific editor by name and title and make sure the name is spelled
correctly. Send your letter to the managing editor; Bacon's gives
the name of the managing editor for most of the magazines it lists.
Before you mail your letter, you might call the magazine to verify
the name; editors move around a lot, so PR directories get dated
quickly.
Ideally, the lead of the letter is written like the lead to your article.
This not only attracts the editor to your topic, but it also helps the
editor see how the article will begin. In the rest of the letter, you
tell what the topic is, give a suggested title, describe the contents of
the article, and then give your qualifications to write it. Close by
asking the editor if he or she would like to see a completed
manuscript.
Most query letters are one-page long. If the outline for your article
is complex or lengthy, you can go to a second page or attach a
separate sheet containing the full outline, making reference to the
attached outline in your cover letter. Always enclose a self-
addressed, stamped #10 envelope with your query letter; many
editors are flooded with unsolicited query letters, proposals, and
manuscripts and will not return your material or reply if you do not
supply your own return envelope with postage.
 Page 269
Figure 13.1 is a sample query containing a one-page letter and an
attached one-page outline. The editor responded favorably, and the
article was published.

FIGURE 13.1 SAMPLE QUERY LETTER

Mr. Kenneth J. McNaughton

Associate Editor
Chemical Engineering
McGraw-Hill Building
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Dear Mr. McNaughton:
When a chemical engineer can't write a coherent
report, the true value of his investigation or study
may be distorted or unrecognized. His productivity
vanishes. And his chances for career advancement
diminish.
As an associate editor of Chemical Engineering, you
know that many chemical engineers could use some
help in improving their technical writing skills. I'd
like to provide that help by writing an article that
gives your readers "Ten Tips for Better Technical
Writing."
An outline of the article is attached. This 1,500 word
piece would provide ten helpful tips each less than
200 words to help chemical engineers write better
letters, reports, proposals, and articles.
Tip number 3, for example, instructs writers to be
more concise. Too many engineers would write
about an "accumulation of particulate matter about
the peripheral interior surface of the vessel" when
they're describing solids buildup. And how many
managers would use the phrase "until such time as''
when they simply mean "until"?
I am the author of a book on technical writing, The
Elements of Technical Writing, published by
Macmillan. While the book speaks to a wide range
of technical disciplines, my article will draw its
examples from the chemical engineering literature.
I hold a B.S. in chemical engineering from the
University of Rochester and am a member of the
American Institute of Chemical Engineers. I was
formerly manager of communications for Koch
Engineering, a manufacturer of chemical process
equipment. Now I'm an independent copywriter
handling several industrial accounts.
 Page 270

Ken, I'd like to write "Ten Tips for Better Technical

Writing" for your "You and Your Job" section.
How does this sound?
Sincerely,
Bob Bly
Ten Tips for Better Technical Writing by Robert W.
Bly
1. Know your readers. Are you writing for
engineers? Managers? Laypeople?
2. Write in a clear, conversational style. Write to
expressnot to impress.
3. Be concise. Avoid wordiness. Omit words that do
not add to your meaning.
4. Be consistent . . . especially in the use of numbers,
symbols, and abbreviations.
5. Use jargon sparingly. Use technical terms only
when there are no simpler words that can better
communicate your thoughts.
6. Avoid big words. Do not write utilize when use
will do just as well.
7. Prefer the specific to the general. Technical
readers are interested in solid technical information,
not in generalities. Be specific.
8. Break the writing up into short sections. Short
sections, paragraphs, and sentences are easier to read
than long ones.
9. Use visuals. Graphs, tables, photos, and drawings
can help get your message across.
10. Use the active voice. Write "John performed the
experiment,'' not "The experiment was performed by
John." The active voice adds vigor to writing.
 Page 271
Give the editor at least four to six weeks to respond to your query.
If you hear nothing, send a follow-up letter or call to make sure the
editor received it. If the editor likes your proposal, he or she will
ask to see the completed article. You then write and submit the
manuscript, following any guidelines, instructions, or direction
provided by the editor. Assuming the article delivers on the
promise of the query letter, is well written, informative rather than
promotional, and accurate, chances are it will be published.
However, please be aware that there is no guarantee of publication,
and editors asking for the full manuscript are merely expressing
interest, not making any firm commitment or promise to you. You
may spend countless hours writing and polishing your article, only
to have it rejected for any reason or no reason. Perhaps the
magazine has changed focus, or the editor has left and the new
editor isn't interested in the topic. If this should happen, you can
send out your query letter again and try to place the article with
another publication, perhaps one similar to the original.
When you query, always send your query letter and outline. Do not
send the full article, even if you have already written it. Send the
query first. Editors want to see queries, outlines, and proposals
because these take less time to read and review than full-length
article manuscripts. Unsolicited manuscripts are rarely given
serious consideration for publication.
The quickest way to turn off editors is to offer an idea that has
nothing to do with their magazine. "My pet peeve with people
calling or writing to pitch an idea is that they often haven't studied
the magazine," says Rick Dunn, editor of Plant Engineering. "If
they haven't read several issues and gotten a handle on who we are
and who our audience is, they won't be able to pitch an idea
effectively."
"There's no substitute for knowing the audience and the various
departments within a magazine," adds Jim Russo, editor of
Packaging. "I'm more impressed by someone who has an idea for a
particular section than by someone who obviously doesn't know
anything about our format."
Every magazine is different in some way from its competitors and
from other magazines in general. Tone, style, content, and the
quality of a journal's writing and illustrations should all be studied
to increase your chances of making a "sale." Offer an editor the
type of article that
 Page 272
the magazine seems to preferfrequency and length are good
indicators of preferred subjectsand the odds are more in your favor.
Companies can easily increase their chances for coverage by
requesting a magazine's editorial calendar and scanning it for
planned articles that might mesh with their products or activities.
"If people respond to our editorial calendar with ideas for specific
issues, great!" says Mr. Dunn. "Or if they can provide background
for a story we want to do, they'll have an edge in getting into the
magazine."
You may even want to suggest feature story ideas for next year's
calendar. The trick is to do that tactfully. "Don't come across as
pushy or demanding," warns Mr. Dunn. "Stay away from saying
things like, 'This is important to your readers' or, 'You should run
this story.' If someone knows our business better than we do, we'll
hire him or we'll go back to school."
However, if you spot a new trend in say, packaging food in plastic
containers versus glass jars, and you can provide statistics and
information to back up your claim, go ahead and contact the
appropriate editor. He or she will probably appreciate your interest
and effort.
Never tell the editor in your query letter that you advertise or are
thinking of advertising in the magazine. Although some magazines
openly run articles and press releases to help promote their
advertisers, many editors frown on this practice and consider it a
breach of ethics. Saying you are an advertiser or potential
advertiser is likely to offend the editor and gain your proposal a
speedy rejection.
Resource Boxes
The author's bio, as it usually appears with the article, is not of
much use to you in a marketing sense. Such a bio typically reads,
"Jack Johnson is a senior consultant with Acme Consultants, a
management consulting firm." Why is this ineffective? First, it
doesn't really explain what you can do for the reader. And second,
it doesn't give the reader a clue about how to contact you for more
information. That's why I recommend you run articles, whenever
editors will allow, with a resource box instead of an author's bio.
 Page 273
The resource box (a term coined by Jeffrey Lant, a Cambridge,
Massachusettsbased marketing consultant) is an expanded bio that
helps turn your article from an ordinary trade journal feature into a
powerful direct response ad for your product or service. The
resource box tells the reader what your company does and what
services or products it offers. Most important, it provides an
address and phone number to facilitate direct contact between
reader (prospect) and author (vendor). In addition, if space allows,
it may also make a specific offer.
Here is a sample resource box:
Jack Johnson is a senior consultant with Acme Consultants, a
management consulting firm that helps companies of all sizes
increase productivity by improving the way employees work together
as a team. For more information and a free special report on "The
Teamwork Breakthrough," contact Jack Johnson, Acme Consultants,
100 Elm Street, Anytown, USA, (XXX) XXX-XXXX.
The resource box is a "mini-ad" for your product or service, and
when linked to your article, it's tremendously effective. The article
positions you as an expert and gets the prospect interested in you,
and the resource box tells the prospect precisely what you offer and
how to get in touch with you to find out more. By adding a
resource box, you can create articles that not only generate
visibility but also produce direct sales leads. And from long
experience, I can tell you this: such an inquiry is extremely
valuable. The person who contacts you as a result of reading an
article you wrote is much more likely to become a customer than
someone whom you contacted cold.
How do you get resource boxes published with your articles? When
you query, don't bring up the issue of whether the editor will
include a resource box with your article. Instead, when you submit
the completed article, type a resource box at the end of your
manuscript titled "About the Author" (do not use the term resource
box). Will all editors use it? No. Some magazines and newsletters
are happy to run resource boxes and do it all the time. Others have
a firm policy against it. Most have never given it much
consideration either way.
When you supply a resource box at the end of your manuscript,
you will find that many editors who would not have otherwise
"promoted"
 Page 274
you will automatically run the resource box as you have written it.
This whole idea of resource boxes may seem mundane or even
petty, but I assure you it's not. Getting feature articles published is
fine, but by itself it has limited value in terms of generating
immediate short-term business.
But when you add a resource box, that changes. Now your article
becomes a direct response vehicle. People read your article, see
your resource box, learn what you do, get in touch with you, and
request more information. A certain percentage of those leads will
translate directly into businesssomething that rarely happens when
you place the standard article without the resource box. Perhaps the
greatest value of the resource box is that it supplies contact
informationyour address and phone number at the time the prospect
is most interested in talking with you (when they finish reading
your article). Many people who read articles that don't contain
resource boxes would like to contact the authors to buy their
product or service, but they are too busy to spend time tracking
them down. The resource box makes it easy to respond, and in
direct response, that's the name of the game.
What if the editor refuses to run a resource box? One solution is to
take an ad in the issue where your article will be published. Run the
ad on a page where someone reading your article is most likely to
see it; a good position is the page immediately following your
article. Since the magazine is already publishing a lengthy article
by you, you don't need a full-page ad; a small ad is all that's
required to supply complete contact information.
If you don't want to run an ad, and the editor will not run a resource
box, at least try to get some contact information in your author's
bio, for example, "Steve Brown is a freelance graphic artist based
in New York City." Although the editor won't let you include an
address, you can often get at least the city in your bio without
objection. The prospect can then locate you through the Yellow
Pages or information operator.
One other point: if your article does not run with a resource box,
add one when you reprint. Reprints get separated from other
materials, and, as a rule, every marketing document you print
should have complete contact information on it: company name,
address, and phone number.
 Page 275

14
Newsletters
In this chapter, we deal with the promotional newsletter, also called
the company newsletter or house organ. These newsletters,
magazines, tabloids, or other regular publications are published
primarily as promotional tools. They range from simple sheets
published in-house to elaborate, four-color company magazines
with photography and professional writing rivaling the quality of
newsstand magazines.
The main purpose of such a newsletter is to establish your image
and build your credibility with a select audience (the people who
receive the newsletter) over an extended period of time. This is
accomplished through regular, repeated exposure of prospects to
your company name, message, and information: the promotional
newsletter.
Instinctively, most marketers recognize that they should be in touch
with their customers and prospects far more often than they
actually are. You know, for instance, that there are many people in
your lifebusines and socialwhom you don't think about, see, or talk
to for long periods of time simply because you are busy and not
thinking of them.
Well, your customers and prospects are busy too. And while you
may be agonizing over why Joe hasn't placed an order from you
recently or called your firm to handle a project, Joe isn't even
thinking about you . . . because he has so much else on his mind.
You know you should be doing something to keep your name in
front of Joe and remind him of your existence. But how? You may
want to call or send a letter, but you
 Page 276
think this is too pushy . . . and besides, there's no real reason to
call, and you don't want to seem begging for business.
The newsletter solves this problem. It regulary places your name
and activities in front of your customers and prospects, reminding
them of your existence, products, and services on a regular basis.
And you need no ''excuse" to make this contact because the
prospect expects to receive a newsletter on a regular basis. The
newsletter increases the frequency of message repetition and
supplements other forms of communication, such as catalogs, print
ads, and sales letters.

Size and Frequency

How long should your newsletter be? How often should it be
published? Four to eight pages is the ideal length for a promotional
newsletter. More than that is too much reading, and two pages
seems insubstantialmore like a flier or circular (which is perceived
as junk mail) than a newsletter (which is perceived as a useful
publication).
As for frequency, four times a year once every three months is
ideal. Publish fewer issues, and people aren't aware you are
sending them a newsletter per se; they perceive that they're just
getting a piece of mail from time to time. Four times per year is
enough to establish credibility and awareness. Publishing six times
or more per year is unnecessary because some months you may
prefer to make contact with your prospects using other media, such
as the telephone or direct mail or catalogs.
What's more, my experience indicates that most companies don't
have enough news to fill six or more issues each year. If your
schedule is too frequent, you may find yourself putting unnecessary
fluff and filler in the newsletter just to get something in the mail.
Your readers will be turned off by the lack of quality and poor
content, so this would hurt you rather than help.
Building Your Subscriber List
Who should get your newsletter? Basically, it should go to anyone
with whom you want to establish a regular relationship. These
people can include:
 Page 277
Current customers
Past customers
Current prospects
Past prospects
Expired accounts (past subscribers, "expires," and so on)
Employees
Vendors
Colleagues
Consultants, gurus, and other prominent members of your industry
Referral sources (influential people who can refer business to you)
Trade publication editors, business columnists, and other members
of the press who might possibly use material in your newsletter in
their own writings.
"All your current clients should receive your client newsletter,"
says Steve Klinghoffer, president of WPI Communications. "The
newsletter is an important vehicle for keeping in touch on a regular
and predictable basis. It confers automatic high visibility and does
so in the best possible way: by reflecting you as a professional,
knowledgeable and competent. This not only builds your image,
but also helps to ensure that current clients will remain responsive
to your recommendations."
Adds Klinghoffer, "Do not neglect to send the newsletter to clients
who use your services or products in a very limited manner, or
whom you have not visited with recently. You may not think of
them as current clients, but of course, they are. What's more, rather
than drifting away from you, the newsletter offers the kind of
visibility that prompts many 'limited clients' to expand their use of
your products and services."
Here is how you build the subscriber list:
1. First, put all current and past prospects and customers on the list.
But don't use names that are too old. For past prospects and
customers, for example, you might go back two or three yearsbut
no more than that.
 Page 278
2. Next, get your salespeople to give you all the names of the
people they call on regularly. Salespeople have their own favorite
prospects, and these people may not be in the advertising inquiry
files. So get them to give you names of people who should get the
newsletter. You essentially want to convert the dozens of individual
Rolodex files kept by various salespeople and sales reps into a
single, integrated subscriber list for your newsletter.
3. Go to your PR department or agency and add its media list. Get
the names of all editors who should receive the newsletter.
4. Make sure all new inquiries and new customers are added
automatically to the subscription list. This includes every response,
every sales lead generated by your targeted public relations
campaigns.
5. For trade shows, create a subscription application form and offer
a free one-year subscription to anyone who stops by your booth
and completes the form.
6. Make sure the subscriber lists contain the names of your
immediate supervisors, your product and brand managers, your
sales and marketing managers, your CEO, and any other key
personnel whose support you need to run an effective advertising
department. Company managers enjoy getting the newsletter and
often will offer ideas for articles and stories you can use. You
might also approach your most important colleague and ask him or
her to contribute a regular column.
Promoting the Newsletter
In addition to compiling the list in this manner, you can do a
number of things to promote the newsletter (and to use the
newsletter offer as a promotion):
1. You can offer the newsletter as an extra incentive to people who
respond to your direct mail. This can be as simple as adding a line
beginning with a box to your reply cards that says, "[] Check here
if you would like a free one-year
 Page 279
subscription to our quarterly newsletter, [title of newsletter]." You
could also stress the newsletter offer in the P.S. of your sales letter.
2. You can offer the newsletter as an extra incentive for responding
to your space ads. Again, add an option to the response coupon that
says "[] Check here for a free one-year subscription to our
newsletter, [title of newsletter]."
3. At speeches, seminars, and presentations, your company
representatives can use the newsletter offer to get listeners involved
in conversations with them. At the end of the talk, the presenter
says, "Our quarterly newsletter, [title of newsletter], will give you
more information on this topic. Just give me your business card and
I'll see to it you get a free one-year subscription to it." This way,
the presenter will collect many business cards for follow-up far
more than he or she would get if there were no newsletter offer.
4. You could rent a list of names and send them the newsletter for
free two or three times. The third or fourth time, you send it with a
cover letter that says, "We hope you find [title of newsletter]
informative and helpful, and we would be happy to continue
sending it at no cost. To continue your free subscription, just
complete and mail the reply card enclosed." Then you continue
sending the newsletter only to those who return the reply card,
which eliminates the cost of continually renting names.
5. Send out a press release offering a free sample copy of the
newsletter to people in your industry.
6. Run small space ads with a picture of the newsletter. Offer a free
sample copy to anyone who responds.
Designin g Your Newsletter
Newsletters do not have to be elaborate. But the design should be
consistent from issue to issue, in order to build recognition and
awareness. After a time, many recipients will come to welcome
your newsletter, even
 Page 280
seek it out from among the pile of mail in their in-basket. But this
can happen only if the newsletter has a distinctive, recognizable,
and consistent design.
Although many paid subscription newsletters are typewritten, you
probably want a design that is a little slicker, so as to enhance your
image. Text is generally typeset or desktop published in two or
three columns. Paper stock may be white or colored, and the
newsletter is usually printed in one or two colors of ink. The key to
the design is a distinctive masthead highlighting the name of the
publication.
The look, content, and ''feel" of the newsletter are usually arrived at
after a couple of issues. By the third issue, you know the
approximate length of copy, the type of visuals needed, the
technical depth of the content, and the types of articles to be
featured.
For instance, you might decide that each issue will contain two
feature articles, one biographical profile, a regular question-and-
answer column on technical issues, one product-related story, three
or four short news tidbits, and a box with short previews of the next
issue. Your newsletter may be different, of course, but the point is,
you'll eventually find a formula that works and stick with it from
issue to issue.
Readers like this consistency of format because they know what to
look for in each issue. For instance, some people opening the
Sunday paper turn to sports first; some go to the comics; others
read "Dear Abby" first. In the same way, some readers might check
your "technical tips" column first, while others will read the
profile. Make these features look and read the same in each issue
(even position them in the same spot) so readers gain a comfortable
familiarity with your publication.
Charging a Fee for Your Newsletter
One common question is: "Since so many newsletters charge hefty
subscription fees, what about charging a fee for my newsletter?"
Don't do it. A promotional newsletter is not the same as a paid
subscription newsletter.
The paid subscription newsletter must deliver unique and valuable
editorial material to the readers; otherwise, they will not continue
to pay a hefty price for it month after month. This material must be
useful, informative, new, and special. In short, it must be material
the reader cannot
 Page 281
get easily elsewhere. The newsletter's purpose is to be the reader's
source of critical information in the area covered by the
publication.
The promotional newsletter is quite different. Although it should
contain helpful and interesting information, readers expect less
from a promotional newsletter than from one they pay to receive.
As a result, they will accept a blend of how-to and technical
information mixed with production information, company news,
and sales talk. And this is the mix you want to give them.
Remember, the ultimate goal of the newsletter is not to educate
readers (you are not in the business of educating people free) but to
get them to do business with your firm and buy your products.
Because your newsletter is free, you're entitled to make some
subtle (and not-so-subtle) sales pitches. But if you were charging,
readers would not accept this. Another reason not to charge is that
paid newsletters typically capture only a small percentage of any
market as subscribers. If you want to reach a broader base of
prospects, you must offer your newsletter free.

Putting Your Newsletter Together

Putting your newsletter together is not terribly difficult. The first
step is to make a list of possible story ideas. (Later in this chapter, I
provide a checklist of twenty-nine such ideas.) The material in your
promotional newsletter does not have to be original, nor must it be
created solely for the newsletter. In fact, a company newsletter is
an ideal medium for recycling other promotional and publicity
material created by your company speeches, articles, press releases,
annual reports, presentations, and so on. This fact helps you get
maximum use out of material you've already crated while
minimizing the time and expense of writing and producing the
newsletter.
The second step is to review your story ideas and select the ones to
be featured in the next issue. If you are unsure as to how much
room you have, it's better to select one or two extra ideas than one
or two too few. You can always use the extra material in a future
edition.
The third step is to create a file folder for each article and collect
the information that will serve as background material for the
person who writes the story. This background material typically
includes sales
 Page 282
brochures (for product stories), press releases (which are edited
into short news stories), and reprints of published trade journal
articles on a particular topic (which are often combined and
compiled into a new article on a similar topic).
The fourth step is to write each story based on this material. Many
advertising managers hire freelance writers to write and edit their
company newsletters. A few hire their ad agency to do it. Using
freelancers is usually more cost-effective. Besides, while most
freelancers relish such assignments, most ad agencies don't like
doing company newsletters because they find them unprofitable.
Some articles may require more information than is contained in
the background material. In this case, supply the writer with the
names and phone numbers of people within your company whom
he or she can interview to gather the additional information. Notify
these people ahead of time that a freelance writer will be calling
them for an interview for the newsletter. If they object, find
substitutes.
Once you get the copy, the fifth step is to edit it, send it through for
review, and make any final changes. The sixth step is to give the
final copy to your graphic artist or printer, who will create a
mechanical. This should be carefully proofread and reviewed
before it is printed. Many companies nowadays use desktop
publishing systems in-house or hire outside desktop publishing
services for newsletter layout and creation.
Once the mechanical is completed and approved, you print the
newsletter. If subscribers perceive it as valuable, you can
periodically offer back issues as a bait piece in your ads and
mailings.
If your subscriber list is small, say, only a few hundred names, you
can have your computer generate gummed mailing labels and affix
them in-house. Once you have a thousand or more subscribers, you
might want to use a letter shop, fulfillment house, or similar
mailing service to handle the mailing and distribution on a regular
basis. This will not be terribly expensive.
Twenty-Nine Newsletter Story Ideas
1. Product stories: New products, improvements to existing
products, new models, new accessories, new options, and new
applications.
 Page 283
2. News: Joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, new divisions
formed, new departments, other company news. Also, industry
news and analyses of events and trends.
3. Tips: Tips on product selection, installation, maintenance, repair,
and troubleshooting.
4. How-to articles: Similar to tips, but with more detailed
instructions. Examples: How to use the product; how to design a
system; how to select the right type or model.
5. Previews and reports: Write-ups of special events, such as trade
shows, conferences, sales meetings, seminars, presentations, and
press conferences.
6. Case histories: Either in-depth or brief, reporting product
applications, customer success stories, or examples of outstanding
service or support.
7. People: Company promotions, new hires, transfers, awards,
anniversaries, employee profiles, human interest stories (e.g.,
unusual jobs, hobbies).
8. Milestones: "1,000th unit shipped," "sales reach $1 million
mark," ''division celebrates 10th anniversary,'' and so on.
9. Sales news: New customers, bids accepted, contracts renewed,
satisfied customer reports.
10. Research and development: New products, new technologies,
new patents, technology awards, inventions, innovations, and
breakthroughs.
11. Publications: New brochures available, new ad campaigns,
technical papers presented, reprints available, new or updated
manuals, announcements of other recently published literature or
audiovisual materials.
12. Explanatory articles: How a product works, industry
overviews, background information on applications and
technologies.
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13. Customer stories: Interviews with customers, photos, customer
news and profiles, guest articles by customers about their
industries, applications, and positive experiences with the vendor's
product or service.
14. Financial news: Quarterly and annual report highlights,
presentations to financial analysts, earnings and dividend news,
reported sales and profits, etc.
15. Photos with captions: People, facilities, products, events.
16. Columns: President's letter, letters to the editor, guest columns
regular features, such as "Q&A" or "Tech Talk."
17. Excepts, reprints, or condensed versions of: Press releases,
executive speeches, journal articles, technical papers, company
seminars, and so on.
18. Quality control stories: Quality circles, employee suggestion
programs, new quality-assurance methods, success rates, case
histories.
19. Productivity stories: New programs, methods and systems to
cut waste and boost efficiency.
20. Manufacturing stories: SPC/SQC (statistical process
control/statistical quality control) stories, CIM (computer integrated
manufacturing) stories, new techniques, new equipment, raw
materials, production line successes, detailed explanations of
manufacturing processes, etc.
21. Community affairs: Fund-raisers, special events, support for the
arts, scholarship programs, social responsibility programs,
environmental programs, employee and corporate participation in
local/regional/national events.
22. Data processing stories: New computer hardware and software
systems, improved data processing and its benefits to customers,
new data processing applications, explanations of how systems
serve customers.
23. Overseas activities: Reports on the company's international
activities; profiles of facilities, subsidiaries, branches, people,
markets, and so on.
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24. Service: Background on company service facilities, case
histories of outstanding service activities, new services for
customers, customer support hotlines, and the like.
25. History: Articles of company, industry, product, community
history.
26. Human resources: Company benefits programs, announcement
of new benefits and training and how they improve service to
customers, explanations of company policies.
27. Interviews: With company key employees, engineers, service
personnel, and so on; with customers; with suppliers (to illustrate
the quality of materials going into your company's products).
28. Forums: Top managers answer customer complaints and
concerns, service managers discuss customer needs, customers
share their favorable experiences with company products and
services.
29. Gimmicks: Contests, quizzes, trivia, puzzles, games, cartoons,
recipes, computer programs, and the like.
"Make sure your newsletters contain timely, provocative
information and advice that will be of specific interest to your
targeted audience," recommends Klinghoffer. "The writing in your
newsletters can make or break your newsletter marketing program.
So make sure your newsletters feature solid information and advice
framed in easy-to-read, action-oriented copy."

What Will it Cost?

The cost for producing and distributing a promotional newsletter
can vary tremendously. Factors that determine cost include:
Length (number of pages, amount of text)
Paper stock and color (one color versus two colors)
Number to be printed and mailed
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With desktop publishing, you could, if you choose, write, design,
and produce camera-ready pages for your newsletter on your
desktop PC or Macintosh. The only cost, aside from printing and
postage, is your time and labor. A useful do-it-yourself tool for
creating newsletters is the "Quick and Easy" book-and-disk
program by Elaine Floyd (Newsletter Resources, 314-647-0400).
What will it cost to have an outside firm produce your newsletter?
A local graphic arts firm quoted me the following fee for producing
28,000 copies of an eight-page, two-color newsletter:

One-time fee to design newsletter masthead $850

and format (for first issue only)
Production of eight-page newsletter
(design, layout, machanicals, type) $1,675
Printing of 28,000 eight-page, two-color $6,500
newsletters
These are 1997 prices for nothern New Jersey, but at least they give you a
feel for what's involved.
As for writing the newsletter, freelance writers will probably
charge by the page (newsletter page, not manuscript page). The fee
varies, and the range seems to be $350 to $750 per page.
Newsletters can be mailed in envelopes or without. If you mail in
an envelope, consider using a 9-by-12-inch one so the newsletter
can be mailed flat. A regular #10 envelope forces you to fold it,
and it doesn't look as good. If you mail without an envelope, you
must leave a blank space on the outer back cover for the mailing
label, and your mailing indicia must also appear. (You could affix
postage, but that is unnecessary and labor intensive.)
Mailing costs depend on quantity and weight. Klinghoffer advises
companies to consult their local post office for details on third-
class bulk rate mail if they plan to mail at least 200 newsletters at a
time. Bulk rates can save almost $100 per thousand newsletters
mailed.
If your newsletter contains valuable information, you might
provide those who get it with a three-ring notebook or binder for
storing issues. Store any extra issues left over from each printing,
so you can fulfill requests for back issues if you get them or have
extras to hand out at trade shows, speaking engagements, or
seminars.
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15
Speeches, Presentations, and Seminars
More and more business-to-business marketing communications
today focus on educating prospects and showing them how your
product or service addresses their problems.
Richard Wurman, in his book Information Anxiety (Doubleday,
1989), notes that more information has been produced in the last
thirty years than in the previous five thousand. And as Carlos
Fuentes observed, "The greatest crisis facing modern civilization is
going to be how to transform information into structured
knowledge."
Speeches, seminars, presentations, lectures, and workshops help
meet this need to transform information into knowledge. That's
why seminars and presentations are so popular. Prospects attend
your seminars to find solutions to problems. If you can credibly
convince them that you have the solution or know how to generate
it, they're more likely to buy from you than your competitors. But
just presenting product information in seminar form does not
ensure sales success. This chapter shows you how to use seminars
as an effective marketing tool, not merely to give away free
information.
 Page 288

A Wasted Promotional Opportunity

Recently, the public relations director of a large manufacturer of
data communications equipment asked me to prepare abstracts of
papers to be presented by company engineers and managers at a
major data communications convention. The convention manager
in charge of presentations would select which companies and
individuals would present papers based on these abstracts.
Fortunately for me, almost all my client's abstracts were accepted.
However, the whole effort was largely a waste for her and her
company. Why?
1. The company did not invite its best customers and prospects to
any of the presentations. So attendance was lower than hoped for.
2. The company did not capture the names and addresses of those
who did come to hear the papers, so they were unable to do follow-
up marketing to this group of people who had shown interest in the
company's technology by attending.
3. The company did not distribute reprints of any of the papers to
its customers or prospects, or use them as bait pieces in advertising
or direct mail.
4. The company did not professionally record any of the
presentations for possible use as promotional videos or
audiocassettes.
5. The engineers made their presentations just at the one show; the
company made no effort to recycle the material for use in other
presentations, nor did it try to rework the material and get it
published as feature articles.
This is not unusual behavior. Marketing communications managers
at many companies pay little attention to the presentations, papers,
and speeches given by their executives, managers, and technical
professionals (except for those made by the CEO and other top level
executives), yet these presentations can be among the most
powerful forms of direct response marketing communications if
they are worked properly.
 Page 289
This chapter explains what to do before, during, and after a speech,
presentation, or other event to maximize its effectiveness. It also
briefly discusses how to generate opportunities for speaking as a
promotion if you are not already being invited to give such
presentations.

The Promotional Speaking Circuit

The world of public speaking falls into two categories: professional
and promotional. Professional speakers give motivational or
informational talks and seminars for a living, and are paid $2,000
or more for a one-hour keynote address or after-dinner speech. We
are interested in the other category: promotional speaking. This
involves going to a group and giving a talk or lecture for free. Why
would someone speak for free when others are paid? You speak for
free to promote your product, service, or company before a group
of potential customers.
Chances are people in your company are already being asked to
give such presentations. Let them know you are interested in
helping them increase attendance, put together their talk, and give
it wider distribution beyond the specific event it is being created
for. They will appreciate your assistance, and you will gain a
valuable marketing tool.
If your company is not being invited to speak, send letters to
people who run local meetings, trade shows, national conventions,
symposia, and similar events offering your people as presenters,
along with suggested topics that you know would fit in well with
their programs.
Finding Opportunities for Presentations
Where is the best place to speak? If your business is local, regional
meetings of clubs, groups, and professional societies whose
members are potential customers are your best bet. Such groups
usually have a speaker at their monthly dinner meetings and are
always looking for speakers to fill slots.
If your business is national, you should target major industry
events that feature vendors as speakers. In conjunction with the
exhibit hall, most major trade shows have educational sessions, and
these are ideal opportunities for presenting a paper on a topic
related to your product
 Page 290
or service. Big annual conferences sponsored by such groups as
Executive Enterprises and the Institute of Management
Accountants are another opportunity to address an audience of
potential customers in a short format.
Turning the Soft Sell into a Marketing Tool
How do you turn this traditionally soft-sell activity of public
speaking into a marketing tool without blatantly promoting your
firm? There are basically four marketing opportunities surrounding
each presentation. These occur:
1. before the talk.
2. during the talk.
3. immediately after the talk.
4. in the days and weeks following the talk.
Let's take a look at each and see how we can increase the
marketing effectiveness of these programs.
Before the Talk. I remember a client who once spent more than
$20,000 to develop an elaborate, ninety-minute presentation for a
major industry trade show. It was exciting, informative, and
supported by a sophisticated multiprojector slide show. Just one
problem: when he gave his $20,000 talk, there were only seven or
eight people in the room to hear it!
Had this speaker's company done a selective mailing to his
database of customers and prospects living within a 100-mile
radius of the location of the trade show? No. If they had, there
would have been more people in the audience, and he would be
putting his company's message in front of a group already shown to
have an interest in the product.
If you want to reach the maximum number of customers and
prospects with your talk, mail invitations to your house list,
selecting those who live within a two-hour drive or so of the site.
The invitation should tell the location, speaker, time, date, and a
little bit about the program and speaker. Be sure to add a closing
paragraph that encourages people to call for more information or to
register. If the speech is held in conjunction with a trade show or
exposition, enclose a free pass to the event with your invitation.
 Page 291
During the Seminar. The goal here is twofold. First, you must
deliver a good presentation so that the audience is impressed and
not disappointed. If they don't like the presentation, they won't be
inclined to learn more about your company and its products or
services. If they're impressed with the talk, a certain percentage of
the audience will seek the presenter out for private conversation
regarding what you do and how it might meet their needs.
As with the feature articles discussed in Chapter 13, the seminar or
speech must be purely information, with no promotion. Sometimes
vendors are so aggressive about promoting themselves that many
seminar sponsors and trade show managers send notices to
speakers stressing that they are not allowed to promote themselves
or their company from the platform.
If you're tempted to do some selling during your talk, resist the
temptation. The best salesperson for your product or service is an
informative, useful talk. There is no need to do any selling at all in
your speech. As you will soon see, the sellingand it's a soft sell
rather than a hard sellwill take place following the presentation.
In addition to delivering a good presentation, your second goal
should be to connect with as many potential customers as possible.
Although not all attending your session will buy from you, a
percentage will. While this percentage is usually small, just one or
two sales or new accounts can make such an activity extremely
worthwhile.
You can get many more leads and sales, however, with follow-up
promotion to the people who came to the speech or lecture. The
trick is to get their names, addresses, and phone numbers so you
can do this follow-up marketing. But how? If you've sent out
invitations and gotten RSVPS, then you already have many of the
names and addresses. Howevers, you get many walk-ins who have
not registered in advance, especially at seminar sessions held in
conjunction with trade shows or conventions. You want to get those
names for your database as well.
Start by asking the sponsoring organization if they are keeping a
list of those who attend; perhaps names are taken at the door. Ask if
you can have the list so you can follow up with the attendees. Most
convention and event managers won't object and will give you such
a list if they keep it. The problem is, most keep a list of everyone
who attended the convention but not a separate list of those who
came to your session.
 Page 292
There are several ways to get attendees to give you their name and
address for follow-up. The easiest and most successful is to hand
out an evaluation form at the beginning of the talk, then stop five
minutes early and ask them to complete and return the form to you.
Leave a space for their name, company, address, and phone
number. If you give a decent presentation and the evaluations are
favorable, most attendees won't mind putting their name on the
form. However, many people will not put their name on a negative
evaluation.
A second way to get names and addresses is to collect business
cards. Normally, only a small percentage of the audience will come
up to the podium after the talk and give you a card. But you can get
almost everyone in the room to give you their business card if you
offer a valuable bait piece or premium related to your talk.
Tom Winninger, a professional speaker in the areas of sales and
marketing, says that when he addressed a group of meeting
planners and spoke on how they could put on better meetings, he
closed by saying, "We have a booklet called '101 Ideas for Meeting
Planners.' If you'd like a free copy, just give me your business
card." Almost all the meeting planners in the room gave Tom their
card. Compare this with the typical two or three cards most
speakers get after their talks. It's also beneficial to make sure all
attendees walk away with your name and phone number, so they
can contact you once they return to their office. How to do this?
You don't want to walk around the room pushing your business
card at people. A better method is to create some simple handout or
reprint for them to keep, and to put your contact information in a
resource box on that material.
You can hand out the printed text of your talk or, if you use slides
or overhead transparencies, copies of your visuals. Reprints of
articles related to your topic also make a good handout. Do not put
out sales brochures, as this sends the wrong message to the
audience. Most people will take handouts if you leave them on
chairs or at the registration desk. But this causes a problem: If they
have your written material before you start talking, they'll read the
material and ignore the speaker. It's best to make reprints available
immediately after the presentation, or to offer to mail the material
to those who give you their business card.
In addition to getting people to take your handout, would you love
it if they crowded around the speaker at the podium after the talk?
To accomplish this, I use something I call the green sheet method. I
bring a one- or two-page handout photocopied or printed on a
single sheet
 Page 293
of green paper (you can use any color other than white or off-
white). The reprint contains material that relates to my talk but is
too lengthy or complex to include in my presentation. It might be a
list of recommended reading, a technical example of how to solve a
problem, or elaboration on one of the points made in the talk.
Somewhere in the middle of the talk, I hold up a green sheet and
say something like, ''I don't have time to go into all the ways to do
XYZ, so I've reprinted sixteen techniques for doing XYZ on this green

sheet. If you'd like a copy, I have them up here, so come to me at

the end of the program and ask for a copy of the green sheet.''
Virtually everybody will want to get the reprint; calling it a green
sheet somehow adds an element of mystery that arouses curiosity.
This technique is best used at programs where the close of your
talk ends the session, and the room will be free before the next
speaker arrives, such as in breakout education sessions at a trade
show or convention. It is less effective at talks where additional
business must be conducted and the group addressed by others after
your talk; doing the green sheet in this case may disrupt the
meeting and annoy the chairperson.
One other thing I recommend you do is professionally audiotape or
videotape the speech. This enables you to capture the presentation
and reproduce it in audio or video form to be used as an
audiovisual brochure or bait piece. We'll talk more about how to
use audiotapes and videotapes tapes of presentations in a bit. For
now, keep in mind that if you intend to reproduce the audio or
visual portion of the seminar as a marketing tool, it must be
professionally recorded. Hand-held video cameras and little
portable cassette players won't do. Look under audiovisual services
in the Yellow Pages to find studios or independent professionals
who can do the taping for you.
Immediately After the Seminar. I said earlier you shouldn't mix in
any selling with your presentation. But it's perfectly okay to give a
one- or two-minute commercial immediately following your talk.
After your conclusion and the applause that follows, you say, "One
more thing: my company provides XYZ services, and if you'd like
more information on what we do, just write TIK (for Technical
Information Kit) on your business card, give it to me, and I'll make
sure the information is sent right away." This encourages people
who are prospects and have some interest to give you their business
cards and request a brochure.
 Page 294
Some presenters write out the closing commercial on an index card
and ask the conference leader or meeting chairperson to read it for
them. This further insulates the presenter from being perceived as a
salesperson and comes across almost as an endorsement from the
meeting sponsor.
Some presenters close by saying, "There is more information about
what we do in the brochures on the table in the back of the room,
and they're available if you're interested." This doesn't work too
well. After a presentation, most people seem disoriented or in a
hurry to get to the next session, and they will breeze by such a table
without a second glance. You'll get better results using the TIK or
green sheet methods I've described.
You might want to write out the introduction to your talk as well as
the closing comments for the sponsor or chairperson to read. This
is the one other place where a little soft sell is appropriate, if done
in a low-key manner. Have the meeting chairperson read your bio,
which you have written like a resource box. Instead of just saying
where the presenter went to college or that he or she has a lovely
family, give the job title, company, a short description of what the
company does, and tell where it is located.
Follow-up After the Talk Is Over and Everyone Has Left. Once the
presenter returns to the office with a pile of business cards or
evaluation forms, you should enter the names into your prospect
database. Use a filter or key so you can target this list segment later
separately from the rest of your prospect list, if you wish to. In the
meantime, by putting their names in your prospect database, you
ensure automatic repeat follow-up by whatever marketing methods
you already have in place for selling to your database.
Send a personalized letter to attendees. Thank them for coming,
and offer to answer any questions or send additional literature on
your product or service. If you promised to send a reprint of your
talk or some other information, enclose it with the letter. If you
didn't offer such information during the talk, do so now, in your
letter. Enclose a business reply card they can use to request the
reprint, booklet, or whatever you are offering.
 Page 295
Another thing you can offer or even enclose (if the list is small) is
an audiotape or videotape of your talk. This doesn't have to be a
million dollar production, but it should be professionally recorded
and edited. Because of the lower recording, editing, and duplication
costs, and also because most company presenters are not smooth
on-camera, I usually recommend making an audiotape of select
talks rather than video. A video must be more polished and requires
more production time.
If your subject is best communicated visually, you may need to use
a videotape. A talk on mathematics or engineering design doesn't
lend itself well to an audiotape presentation because of the complex
equations, mathematics, and graphs the speaker is showing or
drawing on flip charts. If there is a live demonstration of a product,
this may also require video to be meaningful when reproduced.

Using 999 Audiotapes of Presentations as a Marketing Tool

Speaking from personal experience as a consultant and copywriter
who sells his own services, I can tell you that audiotapes of
speeches and talks I have given have been enormously effective as
a marketing tool. I recommend audiotapes to clients frequently, and
those who use them report good results.
Why are audiotapes such an effective promotion? One reason is
that most of the marketing materials your prospects receive are
papertwo-dimensional. An audiotape is three-dimensional, so it
stands out in a crowded in-basket.
A second reason audiotapes work well is that more and more
business people own cassette players and regularly listen to
spoken-word audiocassettes. More new cars than ever before are
being equipped with audiocassette players, so your prospect can
listen to your cassette during time spent driving to and from work.
A real case history: A prospect called me about doing some
consulting work on a direct mail project. I sent him my literature
and included an audiocassette recording of a seminar I gave on
"How to
 Page 296
Boost Your Direct Mail Response Rate." The prospect listened to it
that night driving home and hired me the next day. He said, "I
listened to the entire tape and after it was finished, I was sold."
Here are some ideas for making good use of audiocassette
recordings of talks and seminars:
Include an audiocassette in the inquiry fulfillment package you
send to prospects who request more information on your product or
service. It will make your package stand out, and they will get to it
sooner.
Offer a free copy of the audiocassette as a bait piece to people who
respond to your direct mail or print ads.
Enclose audiocassettes with outgoing "cold" mailings sent to rented
lists of names. This is expensive, but it is an attention-getter and
works with some audiences, especially those who are jaded and get
a lot of mail.
Send a letter to your customer and prospect database telling them
about the recent presentation, and offer to send them the
audiocassette recording of it at no charge.
 Page 297

16
Business-to-Business Marketing on the World Wide
Web
Unless you live in a cave or on a deserted island, you've heard a lot
about the Internet and how it is revolutionizing the way computer
users communicateand how businesses will market their products
and services.
The growth of the Internet has created a new medium for
advertisers and their copywriters: web pages. This chapter provides
tips for creating an effective website and writing copy for the Web.
An Overview of the Web
To keep things simple, let's start with a few definitions. The
Internet is a large network through which virtually every computer
in the world can be connected to virtually every other computer in
the world. The World Wide Web is a subsegment of the Internet.
The Web consists of about a million computers, known as servers,
that store information designed to be accessible to people who surf
the Web. To surf, also
 Page 298
known as navigating or browsing, is to look through the
information on these computers and find information of particular
interest to the user.
The information is divided into segments, each accessible using a
different code (e.g., http://www.bly.com). These segments are
called websites. A server containing the text and graphics of one or
more websites is said to be hosting those sites.
The first page of the website is the home page. This is always the
first thing a Web surfer sees when accessing any given website.
Think of the home page as a table of contents and brief
introduction combined into a single concise page.
Just as the table of contents in a book leads the reader to other
pages, the home page leads the Web browser to other pages, known
as web pages. The two main elements of any website are the home
page and these web pages.
A third element is the hypertext link. These electronic links help
browsers immediately find information of interest to them within
or between websites. To show how links work, let's compare web
pages to the printed page. In his best-selling book, Dianetics, L.
Ron Hubbard used a printed version of the hypertext concept.
Hubbard believed the only reason people could not understand text
was because they didn't know the meanings of one or more of the
words. Therefore, in Dianetics, each new word or concept is
highlighted in bold. This signals the reader to look for the
definition at the bottom of the page. The highlight is the link that
refers the reader to another section of the text.
Hypertext links on the Web work similarly. Any time there is a
word the Web browser might want more detailed information on,
that word is highlighted by putting it in a different color on the
screen and underlining it. To find out more, the Web browser clicks
on the word with his or her mouse. The computer immediately
displays a web page that gives more detailed information on that
particular subject.
This explanation is no substitute for actually getting on the Web
and surfing it yourself. If you are going to write web pages, you
must become familiar with the World Wide Web. The only way to
do this is to get on the Web and browse.
Connecting to the Internet is not at all difficult. You need a
computer, a modem, a telephone line, an Internet Service Provider
(ISP), and browser software such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet
Explorer. You can find an ISP by checking ads in the business
section of your local
 Page 299
paper, looking in the Yellow Pages, or asking your local computer
store or consultant. Most ISPs provide the browser free when you
sign on for their service. You can also access the Internet through
the major on-line services including America Online and
CompuServe.
As this book goes to press, more than 60 million people worldwide
use the Internet, and more than 17 million Americans browse the
World Wide Web at least once a week. There are more than 7
million home pages on the World Wide Web. Jeffrey Lant, an
Internet marketing consultant, says this number is expected to
increase to an incredible one billion home pages within a few
years.
To target your Web copy to this special audience, you need only
consider the demographics:
75 percent of the Web audience are between the ages of sixteen and
forty-four.
55 percent of Web surfers have income higher than $55,000 a year.
54 percent have college degrees, and 26 percent have graduate
degrees.
Seven out of ten business users surf the Web for production
information and evaluation.
Web surfing by business prospects is projected to double over the
next eighteen months.
In an article in Proof, Peter Eder, president of IM&C, reports how
corporations are using the Internet:
62 percent for communicating with external customers
48 percent to improve customer service
41 percent to improve or expand product distribution
33 percent to communicate with vendors and suppliers
32 percent to generate new revenue streams
28 percent for marketing and selling
"The Web is an excellent way to get information to potential
customersopen twenty-four hours a day, instant access leisure
browsing, downloadable for future reference, and always up-to-
date," writes
 Page 300
Eder. He suggests that websites should include such information as
product and service descriptions, pricing, availability, contact
information, corporate history, and links to relevant sites.
"Online advertising allows viewers to click through to your website
where they can get a mountain of information about your product
or service," writes Jack Edmonston, editor and publisher of
Computer Advertisers' Media Report, in an article in Business
Marketing magazine. "You should treat the medium as a
(potentially) efficient means to generate inquiries and sales."
Maximizing Website Traffic and Response
Here are fifteen tips for writing effective copy for this new
electronic medium:
1. Determine Your Objective before You Begin to Write
Marlene Brown, an authority on Internet marketing and author of
the book Techno Trends, offers this advice as the first step in
creating a website:
Before you set up shop on the Internet, determine what your
objectives are. Do you want to sell your present products? Launch a
new one? Market your programs and services? Build traffic on your
home page? Clearly determine your objectives, then establish
measurable goals as to what will constitute success.
Define your target audience. Where and who are your best prospects?
Do you want to advertise your products generically, or target them?
Browse through present bulletin boards, join discussion groups, share
ideas on mailing lists to enable you to see what is in demand, and
who wants to buy it.
Surveys are a great way to get information about what Internet people
think of your products, especially new ones you may launch, or a
series of related products you plan to bundle. Surveys prevent us from
wasting time on products for which there is not a big market, and give
us ideas on needs.
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The Web is, in a sense, a low-cost, electronic version of traditional
direct marketing. Like traditional direct marketing, Internet
marketing can generate an immediate, tangible, measurable
response. But you can't know whether you are getting a good or
bad result unless you establish objectives and then measure your
results against these objectives.
After your website is operational for a few months, you'll have a
better idea of what you can realistically expect to achieve, and can
adjust your objectives accordingly. At the same time, read articles
in the business press to find out the results others are getting with
their websites. This gives you a goal to shoot for.
2. Register a Domain Name People Will Look For
The domain name is the key part of the code the Web surfer uses to
reach your website. To reach my website, for example, type
http://www.bly.com. The domain name is bly.com.
Your ISP, or whatever firm you select to host your website, can
register a domain name for you. Choose a domain name that people
would be likely to guess. Reason: although there are many simple-
to-use search engines (a search engine is a tool you can use to
search the Web for home pages of interest to you, according to
subject matter and source), many new Web browsers don't know
how to use them or don't bother to use them.
Therefore, they are more likely to type in a few guesses until they
hit on your real domain name and can access your website. For
instance, the domain name for The BOC Group, a large industrial
manufacturer, islogicallyboc.com. The domain name for Bob Bly is
bly.com. I could also have chosen bobbly.com.
You should choose a domain name that is either identical to or
close to your company name, or one that relates to the category of
product or service you provide. For instance, if you are a large
freight forwarder, you might select freight.com or ship.com. If your
company name is Global Transportation, you might chose
global.com or globtrans.com.
Domain names are unique: If your competitor registers a domain
name, no one else can use it. However, you can always register a
variation of the name, if that domain name is still available. For
example, if "barbecue.com" is taken, perhaps you will want to
register
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"boc.com" or maybe "grill.com"all good choices for a
manufacturer of barbecue grills.
3. Use a "Website under Construction" Sign
You must arrange with an ISP or other Web company to give you
server space for your website. Then you must have them register a
domain name for you.
Once these things are done, your website will be "live," in that
someone who types your domain name into their Web browser will
be sent to the site. Unfortunately, the site will be blankempty
because you haven't put anything on it.
How long does it take to build a website? A small one- or two-
person business can put up a simple website with a home page and
a few web pages in a couple of weeks. If you have a medium-sized
company, figure four to ten weeks to create your website. And
we've seen large corporations, with multiple companies and
divisions, take six to twelve months to develop their websites. The
websites of big corporations can be so involved that a new job title,
web master, has been created within the corporate world. The web
master is the manager in charge of the corporate Web.
Since the content of your website will lag behind your site
becoming operational ("live") by several weeks to several months,
you don't want people to seek out your site and find it empty.
Here's what to do. Put up on the home page some boilerplate copy
about your company and its products and services. Include contact
informationphone number, fax number, E-mailso people interested
in learning more can contact you directly, even though your
website does not yet have a mechanism for direct response through
the Web (it will; see tip #8 in this chapter). You can write
something custom for the website or simply scan, edit, and put on
the site existing boilerplate copy from a corporate capabilities
brochure, backgrounder press release, or other existing marketing
documents.
This noninteractive message puts your message on the World Wide
Web until your full website is ready, so visits to your site are not
wasted. Above this descriptive copy, put a box with text that says,
in large bold letters, "Website Under Construction." This tells
visitors to your site that
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this is a temporary, not a permanent, site, and so they shouldn't be
put off by the lack of functionality, design, and detailed contentall
of which are to come.
Interestingly, many ISPs automatically provide eight megabytes
(MB) of server space for you to have a website at no extra charge
when you use them to provide your Internet access. Our guess is
that there are thousands of ISP customers who have, in effect, paid
for server space on which they could put a website and don't even
know it. As of this writing, even CompuServe customers
automatically get one MB of server space at no charge. Yet how
many CompuServe users do you think have this space and don't use
it?
4. Make Your Copy Modular
The Web is a truly modular medium. The information you put up
on your website must be divided into separate pages. These pages
are electronically connected, but Web browsers need not go
through them sequentially. They can skip back and forth, from page
to page, looking for information of interest.
Write and design your website with this in mind. Break up the
subject of the website into modules, the way you would break a
training course into segments or a manual into chapters. Make the
text within each web page modular as well. Don't make the page a
solid block of text, as in a book. Break it up into four or five
sections, each with its own subhead. This is the way Web browsers
prefer to digest informationin short, bite-size chunks.
5. Keep It Short and Simple
Web pages are, in many ways, strikingly similar to regular printed
prose. Web pages are written in plain, simple, everyday English; no
special language, computer codes, diagrams, or flow charts are
used in place of conventional sentences and paragraphs.
The beauty of the World Wide Web is that information can be
presented and accessed in layers. This is what enables you to keep
your web pages brief while still offering more detailed information
to those who are interested.
 Page 304
If there is a difference, aside from hypertext links, between the
printed page and on-line writing, it's that web page copy must be
brief. There is no need to make web pages longer than a page or
two, since if there is more detailed information, the Web surfer can
be directed to a separate on-line document on that topic (using a
hypertext link). If the page looks like it will exceed two pages,
break it up into two separate subject pages, and connect them via
hypertext link. Keep paragraphs in web pages short. Most
paragraphs should be no longer than three to four lines. An
occasional longer paragraph is okay, but when in doubt, break long
paragraphs into two or more shorter paragraphs.
6. Use Internal Hypertext Links as an On-Line Index
In a printed book, you turn to the index in the back, look up the
subject by name, then turn to the pages where this information is
located. With on-line writing, the document itself is its own index.
Key words are highlighted and hypertext-linked to other sections of
the document.
do not overdo the links. If every other word is underlined,
highlighted, and hyperlinked, it will confuse readers and they won't
click on anything. Highlight only those key topics that you want
prospects to explore further. As a rule of thumb, if you break up a
web page into sections with subtopics separated by subheadings,
you shouldn't have more than one hyperlink per section, or more
than four or five per web page.
7. Use Strategic External Hyperlinks to Increase Visits to Your
Website
One type of hyperlink is to connect web pages within a website.
But you can also put in hyperlinks that instantly transport your
prospect to the home pages of other advertisers or organizations. In
return, they hyperlink their sites to your home page.
For example, if you sell pet supplies, it would be natural to hyper-
text link your website to the home page of the American Cat
Breeders' Association. If you sell desktop publishing software, a
link to a Macintosh user's group, such as MacSciTech, makes
sense, as would a link to the Apple Computer website. You get the
idea.
By arranging these strategic hyperlinks, you can increase visits to
your own site (by pointing browsers at these other sites to your
own
 Page 305
home page) as well as improve the usefulness of your site (by
helping browsers access related relevant information on other home
pages).
8. Give People a Reason to Complete Your Enrollment Page
Every business website should have an enrollment page. The
enrollment page is a web page where visitors to your site can
register, giving you key information about each prospect, including
the person's name, company, title, address, phone, fax, and E-mail.
For the Web advertiser, the enrollment page is an extremely
valuable tool. It allows you to more accurately measure Web
response, provides a vehicle prospects can use to request additional
information, and enables you to build a prospecting database that
includes, among other things, prospects' E-mail addresses. Once
you have this database, you can target E-mail, fax broadcasts,
direct mail, and other repeat promotions to them as appropriate.
To get qualified prospects to register (fill out) your enrollment page
isn't difficult. You must simply offer them something of value,
which they cannot gain access to until they have completely filled
out an enrollment page. This can be the ability to:
download or request free literature.
use an on-line calculator, search engine, or other website utility.
subscribe to an E-mail newsletter or some other type of on-line or
printed publication.
request a price quotation or get some preliminary
recommendations.
The principle is similar to that used in printed direct mail that
includes a reply card the advertiser wants to reader to fill out and
mail back. Direct mail reply cards are filled out and returned only
when the prospects are given an incentive to do so, such as a free
gift, free catalog, free estimate, and so on. Enrollment pages work
exactly the same way: Give your site visitors a compelling reason
to fill it out, and they will.
9. Add Functionality, Not Just Information
Because web pages are computer files run on computer systems,
they can go beyond the regular printed page to offer degrees of
functional-
 Page 306
ity conventional sales literature cannot match. For instance, on the
home page for Studebaker-Worthington, a nationwide computer
leasing company, there is a handy ''Quick Quote'' calculator you
can access. Simply enter the purchase price of the computer
system, and the calculator instantly shows you the monthly lease
payments.
On the home page for Edith Roman Associates, a large mailing list
broker, there is a "Quick Count" calculator you can use to get
instant list counts. You enter the type of market you want to reach;
the program instantly displays the names of the available mailing
lists, the quantity of names on each list, and the list rental cost. This
is a convenient feature for marketing managers who are planning
campaigns and need to get a quick idea of the size of potential
markets.
If your product or service lends itself to this type of calculator, add
it to your website and make it accessible from your home page.
You don't need to make it elaborate or have many of them. But
adding a useful utility makes your website more interesting and
useful, so that more of your prospects will visit it more often.
10. Change the Content Periodically and Make It Clear That You
Do So
Another big difference between printed brochures and on-line
marketing documents is that on-line marketing documents can be
updated easily, at any time, with virtually no cost. Brochures, by
comparison, cannot be updated once printed. If you have new
information, you either have to reprint the brochure and throw out
the old copies, or add an insert sheet or other supplement
highlighting the new information (which doesn't delete any dated
or wrong information in the old brochure).
Advertisers with websites find this to be a blessing and a burden.
The blessing is that on-line marketing documents can always be
up-to-date, and don't cost anything to revise. The burden is that
you're always going back into your website and making changes,
revisions, and corrections as new information becomes available.
Since the content of your website is being continually changed and
upgraded, this gives prospects a reason to periodically revisit the
website to obtain the latest, most accurate information. Let them
know this.
 Page 307
You can put a message on your home page that reads "Information
changes rapidly, and the XYZ Company website is continually
updated. Visit us often to get the most current data."
Another technique is to have a separate section (web page)
dedicated specifically to news and announcements. This bulletin
can change monthly, weekly, even daily. The more often it changes,
and the more important the information, the more frequently
prospects will visit your site. If you have such an announcements
page, feature it on your home page with a hypertext link, and
encourage browsers to visit it on every trip to your site.
11. Use an FAQ
An FAQ is a unique type of web page containing frequently asked
questions (FAQS). These pages are extremely important, very popular,
and nearly always read. An FAQ page is a way to convey information
simply, easily, and quickly. If it weren't for an FAQ, your E-mail
would be jammed with people asking the same questions over and
over again.
Having an FAQ on your website can be highly valuable. When people
ask you questions, refer them to your FAQ. When people want to
know more about what you do, point to your FAQ. When you receive
E-mail requests for your brochure, E-mail them your FAQ. Since the
FAQ is a separate web page, Web surfers can easily download it and

even print it for permanent reference.

Joe Vitale, an authority on Internet writing, offers these suggestions
for writing effective FAQS:
Use the Q&A format. FAQS rely on the tried-and-true question and
answer format because that is the simplest way to get information
across. If you've been around for a while, you've heard the same
questions asked numerous times. These are the questions to include
in your FAQ. Naturally, your succinct answers are what you include,
too.
Be brief. By now you know that everything you write on-line
should be as brief and to the point as possible. There's simply too
much happening on-line and too many other posts to read for
anyone to
 Page 308
spend a great deal of time on your material. Write a clear question
and give a direct answer and move on to the next question. Ten
lines of text seems like a wise target for each of your answers.
Be lively. FAQS that simply give information can be boring. Spice up
your writing. Add eye-opening statistics, engaging stories,
stimulating quotes. Make reading your FAQ a delight. Say something
that surprises your readers. Add a fact that makes them sit up and
say, "I didn't know that!"
Give resources. Although you aren't writing a term paper or
dissertation, your FAQ is a resource for people. Make it complete by
including details on how to get more information. If you have a list
of books, articles, or tapes, include them. If you have a directory of
people or places for people to contact for more information,
include it. And remember to add your own name, address, phone
and fax numbers, and, of course, E-mail address.
List questions up front. It's common practice to list all the questions
being answered in your FAQ at the beginning of the FAQ. This way
anyone wanting to know the answer to a particular question can tell
at a glance whether you cover it or not.
12. Cross-Promote
Once you have a website, promote it heavily. In your ads, mailings,
and company newsletter, encourage prospects and customers to
visit your website. Put your website address (e.g.,
http://www.bly.com) on every marketing and business document
you produce, including letterhead and business cards.
In marketing communications, include a benefit the prospect will
get, an incentive to go to your website. For instance, you may have
special information that is only available on the website and not in
other media. Or you may post special sales and discounts on the
website that are only available on the site.
For instance, Studebaker-Worthington Leasing Corporation offers
cash incentives and merchandise gifts to computer resellers who
use its leasing services. The company now offers special gifts only
available on the website, which increases traffic.
 Page 309
13. Use Selective Web Publishing
A basic website has a home page and brief (one-page) web pages.
But you have a lot more information about your products and
services than can fit in these formats. What do you do?
You have two choices. As discussed in tip #8, you can have an
enrollment page where people who browse your website are able to
register. On this enrollment page, you can offer additional materials
that can be sent to prospects via E-mail, fax, or snail mail (the
Internet user's derogatory term for regular post office mail).
The second alternative is to engage in web publishing. Web
publishing means converting marketing and informational
documents to electronic form, and placing these electronic files on
your Web server. The documents can then be read on line and
instantly downloaded, even printed out, by browsers visiting your
website.
Enrollment page response offers and web publishing are not
mutually exclusive. We recommend you put your most important
marketing documentsthose containing information most relevant
and interesting to prospectsdirectly on your server, so interested
products can download them right from the Web.
But if you put up all your documents, you can clutter up your site
and eat up your server space. So documents of secondary
importance can be listed or described within the website and
offered on the enrollment page. As a rule of thumb, the 10 percent
most important marketing documents should be published on the
website, with other relevant documents offered on the site through
the enrollment page, E-mail, or other means.
14. Keep Graphics to a Minimum
Says Joe Vitale, "Don't overdo the graphics. Not everyone can see
graphics on-line. Even those who can usually don't have the
patience to download large graphic files. If users have slow
modems, waiting for a graphic to appear on their screens might
take several minutestime for which some are being charged for by
their access provider or long-distance phone company. Use
graphics selectively. Don't get fancy."
Graphics add interest, but words communicate the bulk of the
information on the Internet. So keep your website simple. "Ease of
communication and clarity of use should be your targets," says
Vitale. "Always
 Page 310
aim for simplicity. If your copywriting isn't compelling, few will
buy. True, on-line browsers certainly want information, but don't
feed it to them in dry chunks. The more you can add emotional
excitement to your words, the better your chances of being read,
being remembered, and having your services bought."
15. Vary What You Write
Some people create their own paperless documents, such as E-
zines, or electronic magazines, and design them for home page use.
There are far too many diversions for readers in cyberspace, so
don't bore anybody. With one click, they can leave your site and
never return.
Keep what you say interesting. Always think of your readers and
give them what they want, not what you want. A good rule of
thumb in writing any marketing piece is, "Get out of your ego and
into the reader's ego." Write what would keep them interested. As
Howard Gossage, a famous ad executive, once said, "People read
whatever interests them, and sometimes it's an ad." Make your on-
line text interesting and they just might read what you write.
Be sure you place your name, address, phone, fax, and E-mail
address on every page of your website documents. You never know
when a reader will suddenly want to contact you. Don't make that
person backtrack through several layers of hyperlinks just to find
out your phone number. Put your contact information at the top of
every page.
 Page 311

17
Electronic and Audiovisual Media
Many marketers are now publishing a significant amount of their
marketing communications in electronic form, as a supplementin
some cases, an alternativeto paper documents.
Several factors drive the growth of electronic media, including low
cost, rapid distribution, convenience to the user, and ease of
updating. Another factor causing use of electronic media to expand
is the growing belief that people do not read (but are at home
browsing the Web or watching a CD-ROM presentation on a computer
screen) and tune out printed documents.
Is this true? Is print obsolete? Advocates of CD-ROMS, software, the
Internet, and electronic publishing are loudly proclaiming that
"print is dead." But futurists have been saying this for a long
timeyet it never comes to pass.
When Thomas Edison (18471931) invented the phonograph (from
the Greek words meaning sound-writing) in 1876, he did it to bring
music into the average American home. In his early model, the
"records" were made of cylinders coated with tinfoil, onto which
the vibrations from sound waves were impressed with a needle.
Once he got a working model, Edison saw that his invention could
be used to carry the spoken word as well as music. He publicly
proclaimed that the book-on-record (precursor of today's
audiobook industry) was a far superior learning tool to the printed
page, and that by the end of the millennium, all college students
would be learning by
 Page 312
listening to recorded texts, and paper textbooks would be obsolete.
In 1996, however, textbook sales in the United States grossed over
$4 billion.
In 1964, when Sony introduced the CV-2000, the first home VCR,
technologists proclaimed that the new videocassettes heralded the
death of the printed word. Futurist and science fiction author Isaac
Asimov responded with an essay decribing what he called "the
ultimate cassette."
Such a cassette, said Asimov, would be lightweight and portable. It
would not require a player or need to be plugged into a power
supply. It could be searched to look up specific information or
access particular sections. And its per unit cost should be low. At
the end of the essay, he revealed that he was, in fact, describing a
book, to demonstrate that with all these advantages, print media
might be supplemented bybut never replaced withelectronic media.
In the new millennium, the fate of print is undecided. Working
toward the demise of the printed word is the rising illiteracy rate
and declining reading skills. According to an article in Publishers
Weekly magazine, four out of ten American eight-year-olds cannot
read independently. Approximately 26 percent of Americans are
illiterate, with another 16 percent classified as "functionally
illiterate."
A recent Roper poll shows that 69 percent of Americans prefer to
get their news from TV vs. only 37 percent from newspapers. The
average American household watches TV fifty hours a week. In
1980, 62.2 million newspapers were sold each day. In 1995, that
figure had dropped to 59.3 million, a decline of 4.8 percent in 15
years. During the same period, the number of daily newspapers in
America dropped from 1,743 to 1,548a decline of 11 percent.
Newspaper columnist Charles Krauthammer feels print will all but
vanish in the next century. "The Gutenberg age will end with the
twentieth century," writes Krauthammer. "First to go will be the
newspaper. Then the magazine. Then the book. Their paper
versions, that is. They will all find a new life on screen, on disk, on
line. What is dying is printing, not writing. It is our way of
transmitting wordsnot words themselvesthat is obsolete."
Are consumers proving Krauthammer right? According to Dan
Poynter, author of The Self-Publishing Manual, 80 percent of U.S.
families did not buy or read a book last year, 70 percent of U.S.
adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years, and 58
percent of the adult population never reads another book after high
school.
 Page 313
On the other hand, notes Poynter, U.S. adults spent $25.6 billion on
books in 1996almost five times the $5.4 billion they spent going to
the movies. "The pessimist says our market is smaller than we
thought," Poynter tells book lovers. "The optimist says our
potential market is larger than we thought."
Novelist Umberto Eco, writing in World Press Review, disagrees
with Krauthammer that electronic media will make all print media
disappear, leaning more toward Poynter's optimism. "The
appearance of new means of information does not destroy earlier
ones; it frees them from one kind of constraint or another,"
observes Eco, noting that painting and drawing did not die with the
invention of photography and cinema.

Audiocassettes
Business marketers expend a lot of creative thought and effort
trying to find the ideal gimmick to make their mailings stand out
from the crowd. But one such attention-getter is a familiar,
everyday object: the audiocassette.
By adding an audiocassette to your outgoing direct mail or inquiry
fulfillment packages, you can dramatically increase readership,
response, and the time people spend with your message.
Audiocassettes are effective for several reasons:
They are bulky. "One of the major challenges of designing direct
mail packages is to get them opened," says Paul Cook, advertising
manager of Eva Tone, a large cassette duplicator. "The cassette is
dimensional, so the package gets opened."
They are tangible. Your prospect is flooded with paper mailings. A
cassette stands out from the rest of the package. Prospects notice it.
They are not overused. Personalized sales letter, laser-addressed
envelopes, yes-no-maybe stickers, toll-free numbers, buck slips, lift
letters, and other attention and involvement devices are all
overused to some degree. But not one direct mail or inquiry
fulfillment package in a thousand contains an audiocassette. This
uniqueness adds to the cassette's attention-grabbing powers.
 Page 314
They have high perceived value. The retail price of a single C-60
spoken-word cassette ranges from $10 to $15. Because its
perceived value is higher than a paper brochure or sales letter,
secretaries are less likely to screen mail containing cassettes, and
prospects are not likely to throw them away.
They address the time problem. Business prospects complain of
overflowing in-baskets and having too much to read. But a cassette
can be listened to when the prospect has nothing else to doin the
car on the way home from the office, when taking a walk with a
Walkman.
They address the reading problem. We're told that the young
entrepreneurs and executives of today's generation, brought up on
TV, don't like to read long copy. But they do listen to cassettes. By
including a tape with your letter and brochure, you can reach those
prospects who don't read direct mail as well as those who do.
Cassettes can be used by business-to-business mailers in two types
of mailings: outgoing direct mail and inquiry fulfillment. A single
C-60 or C-90 cassette in a soft poly box with label adds about two
ounces to each outgoing direct mail package. So a one-ounce letter
and reply card that costs 32 cents in postage to mail first class
would go up to 78 cents in first-class postage (the current rate for a
three-ounce, first-class letter) when you add a cassette to the
package. If mailed third-class bulk rate, the three-ounce package
would cost around 23 cents.
Because of the postage costs involved, some business mailers
prefer to use cassettes in inquiry fulfillment packages rather than
cold prospecting mail. The cassette still adds two ounces to the
package, but in a large, heavy inquiry fulfillment package that costs
$1 to $2 more in postage, the weight and cost is negligible.
Another advantage of mailing cassettes is their low production
costs. One small, independent video producer in New York quoted
a package price of $12,000 to produce a professional quality eight-
minute promotional video. Many video producers charge similar or
higher fees, with the cost of producing a finished video ranging
from $1,000 to $3,000 per minute. On the other hand, an
audiocassette can be produced on an extremely low budget.
Professional studio recording and editing isn't as necessary with
audio as it is with video; excellent results can be achieved
 Page 315
by renting a good quality tape recorder and narrating your own
program in your office, or recording a live presentation at a
meeting or seminar.
Purists in the audio business will argue that such a method is
amateurish and produces low-quality tapes that present a poor
image of the advertiser. I disagree. There is something vibrant and
energetic about most live recordings of seminars and speeches that
is a pleasant contrast with the stilted dullness and lack of
enthusiasm found in many professional, "slick" audio productions.
I have gotten excellent sales results using live recordings of
presentations, seminars, demos, and similar events as inserts.
Cassettes are also less expensive to duplicate. They have a lower
cost per unit than videos and, unlike printed materials, can be
duplicated economically in small quantities. For example, I
recently produced a sixteen-page booklet to be mailed in a #10
envelope. Although the cost per unit was low (only 39 cents each),
to make the promotion economical I had to print a minimum of
1,000 booklets.
By comparison, for a series of 90-minute audiocassettes I use as
promotional items, the duplication costincluding cassette, label and
soft poly boxis about $1.25 per cassette. But there is no minimum
order: I pay this price whether I order fifty or five.
Here are some formats you can use when scripting and producing
your audiotape promotion:
Message from the CEO. One way to gain the prospects' attention is to
have someone important talk to them on the tape. Have the
message narrated by your CEO or other executive at an equal or
higher level than the prospect. If you're selling a technical product
to a technical buyer, have the message presented by a credible
technical expert whom listeners will respect.
Commercials. A number of direct marketers use cassettes to
present short commercials. Essentially, they take the promotional
copy from their letter or brochure, condense it, and present it as a
sales pitch on tape.
Explanation. When the message is complex, it can sometimes be
made more palatable if presented on tape. People who are
intimidated by printed documents may prefer to get the same
material read aloud on an audiotape.
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Demonstration. An audiotape can be used to demonstrate products,
especially those with an audio component. For instance, if you sell
enclosures designed to dampen the clatter of noisy computer
printers, on your tape you can present the sound of a printer before
and after. One music publisher selling musical arrangements
includes a demo cassette in his mailings. School and church music
directors can hear the arrangements played with full orchestra or
sung by full choir before they buy.
Information tapes. An overlooked approachand perhaps the easiest
to implementis to send the prospect a tape whose content is
informational rather than promotional. This works well for service
firms, manufacturers, and any other business-to-business marketer
selling to an audience that seeks solutions to problems, answers to
questions, or just more information.
Audiocassettes can be your secret weapon in boosting direct
response rates. U.S. West, in a mail campaign to sell disaster
recovery services, used an audiotape to dramatize what would
happen to the prospect's company if they were unprepared for a
communications disaster. The mailing series pulled a 50 percent
response, generated millions in sales, and won the DMA's Gold Echo
Award.
Audiocassettes do work. They have worked for others; they can
work for you.
Computer Disks and CD-ROMS
According to a recent article in Fortune magazine, approximately
15 percent of the 5.85 million computers sold in 1993 contained CD-
ROM drives. That's more than 877,000 CD-ROM units in just one year,
and it doesn't include the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of people
who are adding CD-ROM units to computers they already own.
Many business marketers are putting their catalog on computer
disk or CD-ROM. A 5 1/4-inch 360K IBM-compatible disk will hold
about a 70-page catalog, if you do it right. The higher storage disks
will, of course, hold more! Your customers will receive your disk
catalog, put it into their
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computer, and will be able to view full descriptions of your
products and services on their screen. They'll even be able to print
out an order form!
Right away, let's look at costs. For a disk-based catalog, the disk
will cost 10 to 15 cents. Add postage and you're at 60 to 70 cents.
You also save on storage. If you have a bunch of catalogs printed
(especially if you had 10,000 or more newsprint catalogs), you're
going to have to put them somewhere. With a disk catalog, you can
copy them as you need them. No need to have 1,000 made up in
advance, unless you really want to.
Finally, consider this. You have 10,000 of your fantastic catalogs
printed. You start mailing them. All of a sudden, you discover you
have to change the price of one of your products. Or, the source for
a product dries up. Or, you want to add a new product or service.
Too badyou're stuck with the catalogs the way they are. With a disk
catalog, you make the change on your master copy, and all
subsequent catalogs are instantly up-to-date.
See the advantages? You can sell your products just as well with a
disk catalog as with a printed one. In fact, people will keep your
catalog around longer, due to its uniqueness (disk catalogs are just
starting to be used). So, how can you get your own high-powered
order-pulling disk or CD-ROM catalog? Well, two ways: you can make
one yourself, or you can have an expert put one together for you,
saving you the time and effort. I'll explain how it's done, and then
you can make the choice.
First, you need to write your product/service descriptions. Use any
word processor that can save documents as ASCII files. These are
plain text files that can be written and read by most word
processors, or directly from DOS by typing ''TYPE (ASCII filename)''.
You'll want to apply all the principles of successful marketing
copywriting in your descriptions. Center them around the benefits
the customer will receive from your product or service. Don't
merely list features, list how the customer's life will be better
because of the features. Don't worry about length, you have plenty
of room on your disk! Also, you aren't constrained by how many
words will fit on the page because your catalog will be viewed on
the screen and will only be printed if the customer desires to do so.
Save each of your descriptions as a separate ASCII file.
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After you have your descriptions typed and saved, you can
assemble your catalog on disk. You will need some sort of program
to let your customers choose which product they want to read
about, and to display and print it.
First, you need to make a menu of your products and services. This
is the "table of contents" the reader uses. You construct your menu
with your word processor. For each menu selection, you start with
a letter, then the name. For example, "A. The Super Widget." Then,
on the next line, you would type an execution command that would
direct your text viewer program to display the appropriate text file.
For example, ''SEE WIDGET.TXT''. This command will not appear
on screen with the menu. Do this for all your catalog items. You
will have plenty of room on your screen, so you should plan out an
attractive heading that shows the name of your catalog, the issue or
date information, and your business name and address.
Now, create your order form in the same fashion. Type it on the
screen in your word processor and save it as an ASCII file. Don't
forget to put your name and address, as well as any ordering and
shipping information you'll need from your customer, on the form.
If you have more products or services than will fit on a single
screen, you will need to create a second submenu that will be
called from your first menu. For example, your second menu
screen might be called "MENU2." You would put a selection on
your menu, such as "More Products & Services." The next menu
command line you'd type would be "MENU2."
The customers insert the disk, type "go" and press return (like you
did, with this disk). The menu then appears. Readers can either
press the letter corresponding to the item they wish to read, or they
can move the on-screen cursor with the arrow keys to the item they
are interested in. If they would like to print the description, they
can press "p" while the description is loaded and it will print. To
leave the description and return to the menu, they would press the
escape key. It's fairly simple and requires little or no instructions to
readers.
Assembling your catalog on disk doesn't require a bunch of glue,
cutting, pasting, typesetting, printing, or any other of the hard-work
jobs that traditional publishing requires. All you have to do is copy
your description files onto a disk, as well as your menu files, and
your men-
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uing and displaying/printing programs. Then, produce a label for
the disk, either from a professional printer or a laser printer.
You've now reached the production/distribution stage. Copy your
disks, label them, and send them out! Here are some money-saving
ideas that will help your cash flow:
Try with all your might to keep your shipping weight under one
ounce. It's easy to do that with a 3 1/2-inch disk, as the disk, sleeve,
a cardboard stiffener (a 4-by-4-inch square of stiff cardboard that
protects the disk) and a lightweight envelope weigh just a hair
under one ounce, in general. Shop around for the right envelope.
The 3 1/2-inch disks will each automatically cost 55 cents to mail,
due to their weight.
Don't use disk mailers. They're heavy and expensive. You can send
your disk in a regular envelope if you use a cardboard stiffener.
Mark on the outside of the envelope in the largest print possible,
"Hand Cancel OnlyDisk EnclosedDo Not Bend!" You can feed
envelopes through a laser printer, which prints a return address and
the hand-canceling phrase in large white on black letters along the
bottom of the envelope.
Videos
If Craig R. Evans has his way, we'll all be watching brochures on
our VCRSnot reading them. Evans is director of marketing for
Minneapolis-based Computer Video Productions, a firm
specializing in video brochuressales brochures produced on
videotape rather than printed form.
Videos became a popular promotional medium as the use of VCRS
became widespread. According to Hal Landen, author of Marketing
with Video (Oak Tree Press), there are more than 120 million VCRS in
homes, schools, and offices in the United States today.
Prospects at large corporations are likely to have access to a video
monitor at the office. If you are targeting small businesses,
however, be aware that many may not have monitors at the office
(although most
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prospects can probably watch your tape at home). For this reason,
an increasing number of marketers are offering videos both on tape
and on CD-ROM, as many businesspeople have CD-ROM drives in their
PCs.
Evans is quick to point out that the video brochure is as different
from the old-fashioned industrial film as day is from night.
"The conventional 'industrial' is twenty minutes of pretty pictures
that tell a nice story, with music in the backgroundan ill-defined
program that is generally manufacturer-oriented," he explains. "The
video brochure runs approximately nine minutes in length and is
based on a marketing perspective, just as a regular sales brochure
is."
At Computer Video Productions, an in-depth analysis of the client's
marketing objectives is conducted before the first word of the script
is put on paper. The results, according to Evans, is a powerful
marketing tool with several inherent advantages over ordinary print
brochures.
"Video is a very intimate medium," he explains. "It appeals to both
the audio and the visual sense. A paper brochure just sits there.
With video you can see the product and also hear it. And you have
a captive audience. People tend to watch your video brochure from
start to finish, in the order you want the information presented."
Compatible VCRS capable of playing the advertiser's videotape are
becoming less of an obstacle. "Our experience shows that, at
companies with more than fifty employees, the recipient of your
video brochure is likely to have access to a VCR either at work or at
home."
Computer Video Productions' own mailing of its self-promotional
video brochure offers a good example of the effectiveness of the
new video medium. The company's first video mailing went to
seventy prospects. "Only one was thrown away, and that was by
accident," Evans says.
Eventually, Computer Video Productions mailed 300 video
brochures to potential clientswith impressive results. Ninety-five
percent of the recipients watched the tapehalf on the day they
received it. The response rate was 30 percent. "We learned that
corporate managers do not throw away a tape when they receive
it," Evans says. "Rather, they will search out a machine to watch it,
or go to extra pains to pass it along to the right person. One of our
videos got passed along sixteen times before ending up in the right
prospect's VCR."
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In addition to being sent cold as a mailing piece, a video brochure
can be used as a presentation aid or a leave-behind by a direct sales
force or manufacturer's representative. Video brochures are an ideal
medium for many high-tech products, which are either too big to be
carried for an on-site demonstration or too complex to explain in
print.
"Video brochures are a primary marketing tool, not an ancillary
tool," Evans says. "We use print to support videonot the other way
around."
Because high-tech products evolve so rapidly, the average shelf-life
of the video brochures Evans produces for technology clients is
approximately twelve to eighteen months. Prices for a finished
video brochure range from $800 to $2,500 a minute. Extensive on-
location shoots, combined with Star Wars-type special effects, can
bump the price tag up to $3,000 or even $4,000 per minute. Landen
says the budget for a ten-minute video can range from $1,500 to
$10,000 for the entire production. According to Sy Sperling, of the
Hair Club for Men, any business can produce a commercial or
video for $5,000 or less.
But, according to Evans, producing a video brochure and mailing it
to key prospects is cost-competitive when compared with the salary
of a full-time salesperson. "And," he adds, "unlike the salesperson,
your video never has a bad day."
Fax Marketing
Faxes are, and will continue to be, everywhere. The fact is, more
professionals rely on fax to communicate externally than every
other communications device except the phone. With this much
useand usage is growing exponentiallyit's important to use fax
technology in the most efficient and productive manner possible.
These tips will help. They are from Maury Kauffman, author of
Computer-Based Fax Processing and fax columnist for Computer
Telephony Magazine. His articles have appeared in numerous
business and trade publications including DM News, Target
Marketing, Information Week, Folio and Voice Processing Asia. He
is active in the direct marketing industry and is a regular speaker at
voice/fax and marketing conferences worldwide.
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Equipment
When buying, or upgrading fax machines, manufacturers tout many
"have to have" features. You don't have to have them all.
Transmission speed. Faster does not always mean lower telco costs.
A fax's transmission speed drops to the slower rate of the two
devices.
Memory options. Helpful, but not always necessary. If your
machine is typically full of paper and available to receive incoming
faxes, memory may be a moot point.
Paper trays. A 100-page tray is the minimum you'll want.
Feeders. Most machines jam at least some of the time when
sending more than a few pages, regardless of feeder capacity.
All-in-one machines. Save these for a home office, they're not
industrial strength.
Price. At $200, they're not going to go any lower.
Page rates. Rates or speeds are generally lower than manufacturer's
specs.
Paper cutters. Make sure they are automatic.
Fax/Phone switches. They do fail; get a second line. If not, you're
not really in business.
Gray Scales. For most applications, these do not make a significant
difference.
Resolution. 200 by 100 dpi is standard and 200 by 200 dpi is fine.
That's about as good as it gets.
Electronic cover pages. They have limited usefulness and
programming them takes too much time.
Speaker phones, copy functions, and auto redial. These should
come standard.
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Saving Money When Faxing
Transmit during off-peak hours when rates are lower.
When possible, omit a full cover page. Save the paper and the
transmission time and use a Post-it Note instead.
Make sure your fax machine is clean. If you're not sure, send a fax
to yourself using the copy function. If it comes through with lines
or specs, your machine needs cleaning. Try using a hair dryer to
blow out the dust.
Send as few pages as possible. Single space and cut down on white
space.
Fax Broadcasting
Fax broadcasting allows you to send a personalized document to
hundreds, even thousands of different locations automatically. It's
an amazing, effective, yet often overlooked, marketing tool. To
increase response rates, try fax broadcasting, and:
Personalize each and every faxuse data from customer files to
communicate.
Add a response mechanism to your fax.
Broadcast at night when rates are lower, for maximum impact in
the A.M.!
Keep the medium in mindphotos and detailed graphics will not
transmit well.
Don't overuse the fax or you can lose the sense of urgency.
Know the law. Read the Telecommunications Consumer Protection
Act.
Save money with fax broadcasting:
Broadcast at night when the rates are lower.
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Limit graphicsthey transmit much more slowly.
Keep your fax to one page.
Compile your fax lists for broadcasting:
Request fax numbers on all business reply cards and other response
devices.
Make sure fax numbers are up-to-dateverify periodically.
Double-postcards should do double duty. Use them to clean your
list and update fax numbers.
Consider offering an incentive to those who mail or call with
updated info.
Your sales force should always update fax numbers with addresses
and phone numbers.
Customer service should verify fax numbers when customers call
in.
Expand your fax number list:
Consider an association listtypically most people in your target
group belong.
If you need fax numbers immediately, use telemarketing to locate
and verify.
Once your list is compiled, make sure updates are made on an
ongoing basis.
Fax-on-Demand (FOD) systems have found a home in companies of
all sizes, helping to conveniently distribute
informationautomaticallyto prospects and customers.
Promote, promote, and promote some more. Send out press
releases to the media and "new birth" announcements to customers
and prospect lists.
If you want your FOD service to be used, install a dedicated toll-free
number.
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Put the FOD service's toll-free number on letterhead, cards, catalogs,
and promotional materials.
Encourage employees to test the system and then recommend it to
customers.
If you have an auto attendant on your phone system, offer FOD as an
option.
Make your service user-friendly. If your FOD service has too many
levels, is confusing or complicated, callers won't call back.
If you are selling information, give something else away free.
Add coupons and special offers. This will turn first-time callers
into repeaters.
Promote, promote, and promoteagain. Send out another round of
mail, faxes, etc. Keep your FOD number in front of your audience.
Hiring Service Bureaus
Costs for fax broadcasting and fax-on-demand applications vary
depending on your volume, the sophistication of the system, and
how you choose to operate the service. Most companies find that it
is more cost-efficient to outsource. But how do you choose a
service bureau? Here's what to ask:
How long has the company been in business? You want to make
sure that it has a proven financial track record and will be around
when you need it. (Hint: This is a new industry, but not that new.
Four to five years is the best).
Does the company have state-of-the-art equipment? Does it use
intelligent fax boards or high-speed modems?
Make sure to check references.
If the service bureau has experience, it may be able to also provide
marketing assistance.
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Does the company have sufficient ports (phone lines) to transmit
your broadcast in a timely fashion (thousands of pages per hour)?
Can the service bureau handle both fax broadcasting and fax-on-
demand? You don't want two vendors.
Price is important but should not be the overriding factor. (You get
what you pay for.)
To put up the application, turnaround time is critical. For
broadcasting, the service bureau should be able to get the broadcast
out in one daymax. For fax-on-demand, it will take up to thirty
days to set up programming, scripting, etc.
Lanfax
This technology is much like a printer server, allowing multiple
users to use one fax line without standing on line. The software
stores, prioritizes, and sends out faxes coming from many sources.
How do you know if you are ready to consider LANFAX?
If you have a high volume of faxes (fifty or more a day), consider
LANFAX.

Do you have more than five people sharing one fax?

If you rely on your fax to receive incoming orders, consider LANFAX
to direct outgoing transmissions.
Is your fax machine substituting for the water cooler? That is, are
people using it as a meeting place?
Fax technology is here to stay. Make the most of it!
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18
Telemarketing
Target Marketing magazine reports that in 1995 sales from
business-to-business telephone marketing for all
sectorsmanufacturing, finance, services, transportation, and
retailwere $56.3 billion. The Direct Marketing Association
forecasts total annual business-to-business telemarketing sales of
almost $90 billion by 2000.
In cold calls, you pick up the phone, dial prospects whose names
and numbers you took from a directory or rented telemarketing list,
introduce yourself and your company, and try to get them
interested in learning more about what you are selling. These
prospects are people you don't know: they haven't bought from
your company and you have never spoken with them before.
Although I often advocate using call guidelines or notes instead of
following a rigid script, I do think you should have an opening
script if you are going to make cold calls. An opening script is a
prewritten dialogue for handling the initial thirty to sixty seconds
of your cold call. It's important that you get the call off to a good
start, and to do this, you must have a pretty good idea of what you
want to say and how to say it. You should write an opening script
and practice it many times until it becomes second nature to you.
Later on in the call, you'll be responding intelligently to what
prospects say and how they sound and act. But at the beginning,
you have almost no clues from which to take
 Page 328
your lead. That's why, to make cold calls with confidence, you
must be prepared to carry on the first thirty to sixty seconds of your
call with little feedback or participation from the prospect.
To be effective, the opening script, when delivered, should tell your
prospect:
1. who you areyour name and, if appropriate, title.
2. the name of your business.
3. the reason you are calling.
4. the reason why the prospect should be interested in talking with
youor at least hearing what you have to say.
Do you really need all this? Yes. If you leave out or try to defer
giving away the first three items (your name, the company name,
the reason for your call), prospects are likely to resent your
evasiveness and become annoyed. People want to know who they
are talking to, and why. You can't get around this. But you can
present the information in a way that arouses interest rather than
turns people off. If you leave out the fourth item, prospects will
quickly lose interest in and motivation for continuing the
conversation, and your calls are likely to be ended by the prospects
in short order.
Fortunately, these four points don't represent an overload of
information, and you can get it all insmoothly, quickly, and without
sounding like a salesperson.
There are an endless variety of opening scripts that achieve these
objectives with varying degrees of success. But most of them are
variations of one of two basic openings: the benefit/statement
opening and the prospect need/qualification opening. Although I
have a strong preference for, and almost always use, the latter, let's
take a look at both of these proven openers.
The Benefit Statement Script
In the benefit statement script, you follow the above guidelines,
immediately giving prospects the four key pieces of
informationwho you are, your company, the reason for your call,
and the reason they should be interested. But you do it with a twist.
 Page 329
The twist is this: in the description of your company and the reason
for your call, instead of just saying the company name and what its
product or service is, you tell prospects the benefit of what you
donot the actual title, product name, service category, or function.
For example, instead of saying you are a financial planner, you say,
''I help people become wealthier and retire earlier.'' Instead of
saying you are a color catalog printer, you say, "I help companies
produce better looking catalogs while significantly reducing their
production lead time and printing costs." For example:
You: Mr. Doakes?
Prospect: Yes, how can I help you?
You: Mr. Doakes, my name is Michael Jones, and I'm a catalog
production specialist with Royal Printing. Have you heard of us?
Prospect: I don't think so.
You: We specialize in helping companies like yours produce quality
catalogs at a significantly lower production and printing cost than
they are now paying. Mr. Doakes, if I could show you how ABC
Company can maintain its high standards of quality in your catalogs
while cutting printing costs 10 to 20 percent, would you be interested
in taking a look?
Prospect: Well, how would you do that?
Note in the above script the following:
I. Michael gives his title as a catalog production specialist. The title
you use in telephone sales calls should not contain the word sales
in it. When prospects hear sales in your title, they rightly assume
you are a salesperson trying to sell them something that will cost
them money, and they want to get away from you as rapidly as
possible.
Use what I call a value-added titlea title that describes what you do
but positions you as a helpful adviser or knowledgeable expert
instead of a hard-pressure salesperson. If you sell mutual funds,
call yourself a financial consultant. If you sell LAN equipment, call
yourself a LAN specialist. A radio commercial for the Vermont Teddy
Bear Company encourages
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listeners to call and speak with a "certified bear counselor"a value-
added name for a telephone order taker. While prospects want to
avoid salespeople, they are more eager to talk with specialists,
consultants, experts, technicians, advisers, managers, and others
who may have important information that could be of benefit to
them.
2. After giving his company name, Michael asked, "Have you
heard of us?" This inserts a natural break into the conversation that
prevents Michael from giving a too-long monologue at the
beginning of the call. It gets prospects involved early. If the
prospects haven't heard of you, they appreciate that you're modest
enough to realize that and ask them. If they have, they become
comfortable talking to a vendor they perceive as well known.
Either way, you win.
3. At the close of his opening script, Michael asks the prospect, "If
I could show you a way to achieve benefit X, would you be
interested?" Prospects are more likely to respond positively if you
offer a benefit and ask if they want that benefit. Response will
often not be as enthusiastic if you merely say, "Are you interested
in buying widgets?"
The benefit statement script is used by numerous telesellers and
can be very effective. The advantage is that it presents your offer in
terms of customer benefits, not product or service or seller. The
disadvantage is that it can come across as a sales pitch. And some
prospects find it evasive. Their feeling: "If you are a printing
broker, just come right out and say it; don't ask me if I want to save
money on printing. Of course, I do. What kind of idiotic statement
is that?"
Also, the benefit you stress in your opening may not be the benefit
the customer considers most important in evaluating your type of
product or service. For instance, if you offer lower costs and a
particular prospect is more interested in higher quality, then you've
already disconnected with himyou're not talking about what really
interests him. You're not on the same wavelength. And it's difficult
to get back on track because you've already presented yourself as
the low-cost sup-
 Page 331
plier, not the quality supplier. To then say, "Oh, we are also better
quality" lacks credibility.
This danger can be avoided by using the prospect
need/qualification script. Let's take a look at how it works.
The Prospect Need/Qualification Script
In the benefit statement opening, you tell the prospect, "Here is
what you need . . . here is the benefit, the advantage we offer
versus other suppliers." But, if that benefit doesn't match the
customer's concerns, you are in trouble.
In the prospect need/qualification opening, you ask prospects,
"What benefits are you most interested in when evaluating products
or services like mine?" The prospects tell you. And then you
present your capabilities as favorable to helping the prospects
achieve their goals better than what they are now buying.
Here's how Michael Jones might have used the need/qualification
opening with Mr. Doakes:
You: Is this Mr. Doakes?
Prospect: Yes, how can I help you?
You: My name is Michael Jones, and I'm a catalog production
specialist with Royal Printing. Mr. Doakes, are you still the manager
of Communications at ABC?
Prospect: Yes, I am.
You: And are you the person responsible for buying four-color
printing for your company?
Prospect: Yes.
You: May I ask you a question?
Prospect: Yes
You: What would it take for Royal Printing to do color catalog
printing for your firm?
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Prospect: Well, although cost is always important, we're primarily
concerned with quality and reliability.
You: [You talk about Royal Printing in terms of quality and reliability,
not emphasizing price].
Some important points to note about this script:
I. Michael Jones qualified the prospect. He asked if he had reached
Mr. Doakes, if Mr. Doakes was still the communications manager,
and if he was the person in charge of color catalog printing. Had
Mr. Doakes said he was in fact not responsible for buying color
printing, Jones would then ask him: "Can you tell me who that
would be?" He would then end the call with Doakes and phone the
other person, noting, "I got your name from Michael
Doakes"turning the conversation from a cold call into a referral.
2. Michael Jones qualified the need. He learned that ABC still bought
color printing and was therefore a prospect for his service. If Mr.
Doakes had said, "We do it all in house and no longer buy color
printing outside," Jones would know his chances of making a sale
to Doakes were extremely limited.
3. Michael Jones, having established that ABC buys his type of
service and Doakes is the buyer, asks, "What would it take for us to
do business together?" Instead of picking one fact about Royal and
presenting it to the customer as a benefit, he has asked, "What
benefits are you looking for that we might be able to offer you?"
When the prospect answers, Jones knows one of two things: Either
Royal can't meet the need and this is not a good prospect, or Royal
can meet the need because Royal's capabilities are compatible with
the customer's requirements. Knowing this, and knowing what
those requirements are, Jones can then effectively present Royal's
capabilities in a way that maximizes the customer's interest in the
service.
Direct marketing expert Sig Rosenblum says, "Don't talk about
yourself. Talk about the prospect. Prospects aren't interested in
your
 Page 333
company, your money woes, your sales quota, your equipment.
Prospects are interested in themselvestheir problems, their needs,
their fears, their business concerns, their sales, their cash flow, their
job security." The prospect need/qualification opening is so
effectiveand for me, so comfortableprecisely because it puts the
focus on the prospect, where it belongs, and not on me, my
company, my product, or my service.
Try both the need/qualification and the benefit opening scripts, and
see which works best for you. Vary the scripts in this chapter to fit
your own selling situation. Combine them, or create your own
opening (be sure to share it with me!).

Shift Delivery to Accommodate Prospect Mood

When delivering your opening script, you can adjust the delivery to
fit the reception the prospect is giving you over the phone:
If the prospect is interested and open to your message, slow down a
bit. Be relaxed, friendly, cordial. Have a real conversation. The
prospect is inviting you to do so.
If the prospect is neutral, proceed on an even keel. Don't get too
informal or comfy. But take your time, remain professional, and
move things along at a reasonably brisk pace.
If the prospect seems bored, disinterested, or hostile, and your
benefit statement or need/qualification opening doesn't warm them
up, you may want to politely end the call and move to the next
prospect on your list. The person is probably not going to respond
positively. At least not today.
If the prospect seems pressed for time, ask when would be a good
time to call back. Make an appointment to call back on that date
and time. Make sure the prospect knows it's an appointment. Write
it in your appointment calendar. Then follow up and make the call.
If the prospect isn't there when you call, keep trying until you do
connect.
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Eight More Cold Call Tips

My friend and colleague, telemarketing consultant Mary Anne
Weinstein, offers these additional tips for telesellers making cold
calls:
I. Make sure your phone provides a clear sound, is comfortable,
sturdy, and easy to use. Touch tone produces your ring 50 percent
faster than rotary.
2. Let each call ring no more than six times. If you get a busy
signal, move on to the next call. Do not replace the receiver after
each call. It's a waste of time.
3. Everything rides on your voice. It's more important than your
script. Your voice needs to be warm and friendly and properly
pitched, not too loud or too soft, not too fast or too slow, not
garbled or slurred. It must sound enthusiastic and sincere.
4. Your script needs to tell your listeners who you are, what you are
offering, how it will benefit them, and how, when, and what they
need to do to buy your product or service. Don't expect it to be
perfect the first time. You will need to work with it, making
modifications as you go. Keep trying. You will get it right.
5. Your list, too, must be tested and qualified. Once you have done
this you are ready to begin. Pick up the phone and start making
more money!
6. Get a good night's sleep before any day you have earmarked as a
telemarketing day. Telesellers take more rejection than most people
can stand. "Sleep is nature's soft nurse."
7. Take a break after each hour of work, never skip lunch, and don't
work for more than four or five hours a day. After four hours,
productivity decreases greatly.
8. Here is one last tip: Remember that rejection brings you closer to
success. Every new day presents its own challenge for outstanding
achievement, for superior performance in our every human
endeavor.
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The Presentation Script

What is a presentation script? It is the portion of your cold call in
which you present your offer, product, service, or proposition to the
prospect and ask for action. The presentation portion of the call
immediately follows the opening script as described in the previous
chapter.
Calls should flow smoothly from opening, or qualifying prospects,
to presenting your sales proposition. Prospects should be unaware
that you have made an evaluation, deemed them a hot lead, and
switched to selling mode.
Although there are as many different sales pitches as there are
telesellers, most sales presentations fall into one of these four basic
categories or types:
1. Benefit/advantage
2. Survey/question (fact-finding)
3. Dialogue/back-and-forth (rapport-building)
4. Direct
Let's take a look at each and how to put them together for
maximum effectiveness.
Benefit/Advantage
According to psychologists and sales trainers, people's actions are
designed to accomplish either one of these two objectives: gain
reward or avoid punishment. To put it another way, people act
either out of greed or out of fear.
Traditional selling is based on appealing to the prospect's desire to
gain reward. Therefore, salespeople are taught, "Stress the benefits
of what you are selling, not the features." In other words, don't sell
insurance; sell financial security and protection from financial
disaster.
In benefit/advantage teleselling, the teleseller rarely mentions the
product feature or fact without tying a benefit to it. Therefore,
instead of saying, "The X-900 is the most compact copier in our
home office line," you would say, "The X-900 is the most compact
copier in our line, which means it's ideal for home offices with
limited space."
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Why do your prospects want to buy your product? What
advantages does it offer them? What problems does it solve? How
is it superior and different than other solutions prospects could
buy? Write down these key benefits and advantages. Work them
into your presentation script or call guidelines.
Be careful not to overdo it. Use benefit/advantage selling
selectively. Don't attach a benefit to every single statement you
make. If you do, you'll sound like a salesperson making a pitch,
which isn't what you want. Speak naturally. If something rings
phony to you, don't say it just because you think you must add a
benefit. If you come on too hard, too much like a salesperson, you
risk turning off the prospect.
Survey/Question (Fact-Finding)
In this technique, you ask prospects questions to find out what
they're interested in. Then you present the features and benefits of
your product that address prospects' concerns, interests, needs,
wants, and desires. For instance, if you are selling copiers, you
probably can offer many different models with a wide range of
features. Which features do you stress? Which model do you try to
sell the customer? When you ask questions, the prospects' answers
enable you to hone in on exactly the right model copier, and talk
about only those features of concern to them.
Prospect: We might need a new copier. But why should we buy from
you?
You: I don't know that you should. What are you looking for in a
copier?
Prospect: One thing our old copier doesn't have that I'd love to have is
 collating. But we can't afford a big fancy collator.
You: Our X-900 CopyMaster might fit the bill. It's one of the only
home office copiers to have a high-speed, high-capacity collator. The
collator is included as part of the machine at no extra cost. And the
$1,400 price is well within the budget we discussed earlier.
Many salespeople make the mistake of making a "blind" sales
pitch: They talk incessantly about products, models, and features
without
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really knowing what customers are looking for or what will get
them excited and interested.
The most successful salespeople find out what the customer wants,
then provide it. To know what the customer wants, just ask. The
telephone is an ideal medium for asking questions, in that you can
get an immediate response and reply in context almost instantly. If
the prospect needs a copier that can reduce large pages to letter
size, you immediately focus on the models with that feature,
stressing convenience, simplicity, and low cost.
Be an active listener. Most people who sell do it absolutely wrong.
They tell prospects what they want to say, reciting a memorized list
of product features and benefits. But what prospects care about, as
copywriter Sig Rosenblum points out, are what is important to
them: their needs, their problems, their concerns, their fears, their
desires, their goals, their dreams. Successful salespeople tailor their
presentations to show how the features of their product or service
can give every client what he or she desires most or needs to solve
his or her problem.
But how do you find out what prospects want or desire? First and
foremost, you listen. Prospects who do not hear from you what
they want to hear from you will tell you so. Often these statements
are in the form of objections. You may think, I always listen to
prospects and clients. But do you? Be honest. Aren't there times
when the prospect is talking where you're not really listening but
instead planning what you want to say next? And when a prospect
says something that you don't agree with or don't want to hear,
aren't you immediately planning your rebuttal rather than sitting
back and listening to see whether the complaint or statement has
merit?
Here are some tips for more effective listening:
Focus. When you are listening and doing something else at the
same time, you aren't really listening. When prospects speak, give
them 100 percent of your concentration. If, for instance, you're
talking with a prospect over the phone, don't go through your mail
at the same time. Follow the advice of poet May Sarton, who said,
"Do each thing with absolute concentration." Listening is an active
process, not a passive one, and it requires your full attention.
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Take notes. There are several benefits to this. First, you can jot
questions as they occur to you, so you don't forget to ask them later
on. Second, you can quickly and easily prepare a good proposal or
follow-up letter based on the notes. When you take notes, your
follow-up documents will be full of good, specific material
prospects want to see because you recorded their requests and
preferences.
Respond verbally. Say things that indicate to prospects you are
listening and have empathy for what they are saying. One simple,
effective communication technique for demonstrating your
understanding is simply to say, "I understand":
Prospect: We're looking for a contractor who can handle the job from
start to finish. I don't want to have to coordinate and deal with half a
dozen or more different vendors. We want one firm to do the whole
job.
You: I understand.
Another technique is to rephrase the prospect's statement and
repeat it back:
Prospect: We're looking for a contractor who can handle the job from
start to finish. I don't want to have to coordinate and deal with half a
dozen or more different vendors. We want one firm to do the whole
job.
You: So what you're saying is you want a contractor who can provide
all the pieces and provide single-source responsibility for getting your
system designed and installed.
Prospect: Yes, that's correct.
Equally effective is to rephrase the prospect's statement and repeat
it back as a question to which he or she will answer affirmatively.
This gets the prospect agreeing to things you say, which eventually
leads to a close:
Prospect: We really need an ad campaign that will penetrate the
under-thirty market for this product.
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You: So would you be interested specifically in dealing with an ad
agency with a proven track record in selling to the under-thirty
market?
Prospect: Yes, that's what we're looking for.
Some salespeople are more aggressive, phrasing their question so
that the answer indicates a tentative (if small) commitment on the
part of the prospect:
Prospect: We would need seminars to train 100 DP staff members no
later than February 1.
You: So if we could train your total staff of 100 by the first of
February, you'd be interested in going ahead, wouldn't you?
Why is the survey mode so effective in selling? Because questions
demonstrate your concern for the prospect's problems. Asking
questions puts the focus of the phone call where it should beon the
prospect's needs, not your products, services, or company.
The survey mode enables you to determine the prospect's
requirements so you can tailor your products and services to
address those requirements. ''In the first meeting with prospective
clients, focus on what they really need to make their problem go
away,'' says marketing consultant Howard Shenson. "Don't waste
the prospect's time providing a verbal résumé. If prospects need
information on your skills, abilities, and experience, they will
certainly ask."
Here are some other questions you may find helpful in getting
prospects to open up and tell you how you can help them:
"How can I help you?"
"Tell me a little bit about your current situation."
"What specifically do you need me to do for you?"
"What are you looking to accomplish in [name their specific area
of interest]?"
"That's interesting. Tell me more."
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At times, prospects are unable to articulate their requirements and
just go on and on without getting to the point. I help them get back
on track by interrupting and saying, "I understand. But what
exactly is it that you would like me to do for you?"
If a prospect and I are having a conversation, and I decide to
interject a question, I don't jump in and immediately ask it. I pause
for a second, then say, "May I ask you a question?" This
interruption forces prospects to stop talking, prepares them to
listen, and puts them in a receptive, thoughtful state, ensuring that
they will hear my question and provide an answer to it. It also says,
"I think this is so important that I want us to stop and question what
we're talking about so we can proceed on an accurate basis." Use
"May I ask you a question?'' It works!
Of course, the point of the call is not to ask endless questions or
gather infinite information. Each question is designed to clarify and
diagnose the prospect's requirements, so that you get, as quickly as
possible, to the point where you can outline the prospect's project
requirements, your proposed plan of action, and your fee.
Dialogue/Back-and-Forth (Rapport-Building)
Like it or not, personal chemistry is a major factor determining
whether prospects buy from you. It's really quite simple: people
buy from people whom they like and feel comfortable with. They
avoid doing business with people whom they dislike, are afraid of,
or who make them uncomfortable. In certain instances, there will
be a strong reaction between two personalities that cannot be
avoided or controlled. One person will, for a myriad of reasons,
take an instant and overwhelming liking or disliking to another
person.
But in most cases, you can create good chemistryor at least create
behavior that allows good chemistry to grow and flourish. For
instance, if you have a big ego, be aware that most people don't like
braggarts and egomaniacs. No matter how smart, right, or good you
are, many people won't hire you because they can't stand the way
you behave.
Suzanne Ramos, a manager at American Express, says she
occasionally sees salespeople who violate what she considers the
unwritten rule that the client is always right. They talk too much or
come across as overconfident, argumentative, even mildly
disdainful or arrogant. She is also alert to people who might be
difficult to work with. "Life is too short," she says.
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In general, people like people who
are friendly.
are warm.
are courteous.
are polite.
are on time.
are respectful.
like them.
share their interests.
listen to them.
show an interest in them.
ask them about themselves.
treat them well.
help them.
In the 1980s sales trainers and authors introduced the concept of
consultative selling. Essentially, consultative selling said, "Clients
and customers want you to solve problems for them, not 'sell' them.
Good salespeople aren't peddlers or hucksters; they're 'sales
consultants' who work closely with clients, helping them fulfill
their needs."
Suddenly salespeople in all fields stopped referring to themselves
as salespeople and began calling themselves consultants. People
who sold financial services, for example, began putting such
impressive-sounding titles as financial planner or financial
counselor on their business cards. The consultative salespeople
even developed a slogan"Solve, don't sell"to push their approach to
sales.
Much of the consultative approach to selling is valid and can be
applied effectively to selling your products and services. However,
in one respect, the consultative selling gurus and disciples went
overboard: some did so much free "consulting" before they were
retained by the prospect that they ended up giving away their
services for free, removing the need for the prospect to hire them.
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The successful salesperson today practices what I call modified
consultative selling. That is, we selectively consult with prospects
on their problem during the initial calls. We give enough
information to convince prospects that we are experts who can help
them, without giving away so much that they can solve the problem
themselves and don't need our help anymore.
For instance, let's say you run a graphic design studio. A prospect
asks, "Is there any way to design a brochure that features all six
products but could be easily updated if one of the products
changes?" Because you know the answer, your tendency might be
to dash off a sketch or fold together a dummy out of scrap paper to
show how it's done. Have you sold effectively? No, because the
prospect now knows the answer and can take your solution to his or
her current graphic designer or staff artistor, if the prospect is
cutting costs, directly to a printer.
Instead, you should say, "Yes, that's a requirement we've handled in
the past for other clients, and when we're further into the design
process, we'll present some options that would work with your
particular product." This answer indicates that you are the designer
who understands and can solve the problem, but makes it necessary
for the prospect to hire you (and not someone else) to get this
solution.
And that's the essence of modified consultative selling.
Consultative selling said "Act like the problem-solving genius at
the initial meeting, do everything you can for prospects, and they
will hire you out of gratitude and because you're so impressive."
Modified consultative selling, on the other hand, says, "Act like the
knowledgeable problem solver at the initial meeting. Do and say
things that convince clients that you indeed do know the answers,
but don't give the answers away right then and there. Instead,
disclose just enough information so that clients perceive that they
need to hire you to get the solution or results they desire." Be a
consultant, by all means, but don't give away the store. Say and do
things that demonstrate your abilities and create (rather than
eliminate) the need for your products and services.
Should your basic presentation be planned? Of course. But be
willing and able to change course in midstream if the prospect
takes the conversation in a direction in which you didn't intend to
go.
Recently, we had a general contractor come to our home to give an
estimate on adding a family room. Mike, a creative and talented
pro-
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fessional, had his vision of what a family room should be.
Unfortunately, it conflicted with the family room I had dreamed of
having.
Mike insisted that at the rear of the room, there should be sliding
glass doors leading onto a deck. I, however, do not like sliding
glass doors. I don't like the temptation and easy entry they offer
burglars, nor do I like the heat loss in winter. I explained this to
Mike. He countered with an explanation of what a wonderful view
the doors would give me. I told him a window would do just as
nicely. He countered with an explanation of how a rear door adds
value to the home. After going back and forth a few times, it
should have been clear to Mike that I didn't want sliding glass
doors.
At that point, he should have rearranged his presentation to meet
my needs. For instance, he might have suggested a fireplace or a
woodburning stove or wall-to-wall built-in bookcases for the kind
of cozy family room I envisioned. But he was inflexible. He
wanted to design a room with sliding glass doors and one of his
famous decks, and nothing else would do for me. After fifteen
minutes I became impatient, quickly ended the conversation, and
showed Mike the door. It's possible I may still give him the jobI
like him and his workbut his sales presentation actually decreased
the probability of this happening.
And that's the risk of being inflexible. If you refuse to listen to
prospects, to acknowledge their ideas and wishes, and to tailor your
presentation to show that you understand and want to meet their
needsin short, if you insist on doing it your way and your way
onlyyour sales presentation not only won't get you a go-ahead but
may actually make prospects less inclined to buy from you than
they were before you started. Yes, an ineffective or negative
conversation with a prospect can actually unsell you and your
products!
Direct
In the direct sales mode, you spend most of your time qualifying
prospects, selling benefits, and pushing toward a close. Aggressive
financial services sellers promoting stocks over the phone often
take this no-nonsense tact.
One question that arises is: How honest should you be about your
products and the results you expect to achieve for the prospects?
The
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position I advise you to take is: present yourself and your products
in the most favorable light possible without misrepresenting
yourself.
Financial services marketing expert Denny LeBarron advises,
"Don't make any commitments or claims you can't live up to." I
agree. But at the same time, remember that your competitors are
puffing their own abilities and making themselves look good. They
stretch the truth, exaggerate. Some even just plain lie.
You should not lie, but in the face of all this hype, it doesn't pay to
be overly modest either. Management consultant Gary Blake gives
this advice: "Present yourself as about 10 percent better than you
really are." My feeling is that you shouldn't lie or exaggerate, but
you should present yourself as the very best you can be and have
been.
As the song says, "Accentuate the positive." Tell all the good things
about your product line. Highlight your successes. Don't go out of
your way to tell prospects about your weaknesses and failures.
Your competitors will gladly do that for you. Present yourself in
the most favorable light possible while maintaining complete
honesty and integrity. Prospects want to hire people who are
successful, not mediocre. Position yourself as such.
When going for the close, use a preference sell with a limited range
of options or choices. In a preference sell, you do not ask prospect,
"Do you want a hair replacement system?"a close that risks a "no"
answer in response. Instead, you ask prospects to tell you their
preference: "Do you want the Poly-Fuse hair replacement system,
or would you prefer the Poly-Fix?" Notice that ''no" is not a logical
answer to this question.
"Don't give your clients too many choices," advises direct
marketing consultant Joan Harris. "This either confuses them, if
they're the decision maker, or slows down the process if lots of
people have to see it."
This is an old trick of clothing salespeople that can easily be
applied to selling most products and services. The clothes salesman
knows that if a customer is confronted with rack after rack of ties
to choose from, he or she will become overwhelmed and unable to
make a decision. So instead, the salesman begins narrowing the
choices: "Do you want silk or polyester?" You say silk. The
polyester ties are removed from the counter. "Do you want plain or
patterns?" You say patterns. Solid color
 Page 345
ties are removed from the counter. "Stripes or polka dots?" You say
stripes. Polka dot ties are taken away. "Do you prefer bright colors
or pastels?" This continues until two or three ties remain. Then the
close: "Do you want this one, this one, this one, or will you be
taking all three?"
Limit the number of choices. The point is not to overwhelm
prospects with lots of choices to make. Remember, they are
looking to you for guidance. If they seem unsure, say, "We could
do it this way or this way. Which do you prefer?" By all means,
give prospects choices. Prospects resent being told what to do and
like to think it was their decision. But in reality, you control the
presentation, offering enough options to enable choice without
causing confusion.
Another key ingredient in the direct sales approach (or any of the
other presentation modes discussed in this chapter) is enthusiasm.
You must be genuinely enthusiastic about your service and about
the prospect's proposed project or assignment. If you're indifferent,
disdainful, or even just plain bored, you are unlikely to close the
deal.
How do you show enthusiasm? For once, there's no technique for
you to learnif you are enthusiastic, it will naturally show through in
your voice, attitude, manner, and presentation. By the same token,
any lack of enthusiasm will also become apparent to the prospect.
Just be yourself.
Many novice salespeople stumble painfully through sales
presentations because they haven't planned in advance what they
are going to say. Planning means not only having a well-practiced
presentation, but also knowing what to say in reply to prospects'
comments, questions, and objections. The key to being polished
and smooth is to anticipate what prospects will say and prepare, in
advance, sensible answers. This way, when prospects say, "But I
can get it cheaper from the printer around the corner," instead of
saying, "Uhh . . . well . . . ummm," you launch immediately into a
confident, clear explanation of why you should print the brochure
even though you cost a bit more.
When you are prepared, you feel confident speaking with prospects
and clients. When you are not prepared, you are nervous because
you're afraid they'll state an objection or ask a question to which
you have no answer. The more prepared you are, the less likely this
is to occur.
In the movie The Verdict, Jack Warden tells Paul Newman, "Never
ask a witness a question to which you don't know the answer." The
ideal
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in selling is to be so well prepared that prospects never ask you a
question to which you don't know the answer.

Getting Past the Secretary

Those of you who sell to businesses habe a problem that consumer
service marketers do not: namely, getting past the secretary,
receptionist, or assistant when calling to speak with the prospect. "I
refer to secretaries and receptionists as 'filters' because they were
hired to filter calls," says sales trainer Bill Bishop. "Some calls are
to be filtered through, and some are to be filtered out."
This section presents proven strategies for handling secretaries so
that they are not offended by your tacticsbut so you also get
through to the person you want to speak to.
One way to get past the secretary is simply to call at a time when
the prospect is likely to be in, but the secretary isn't. Many
secretaries work standard office hours, while some hard-driving
business executives and entrepreneurs put in longer hours. As a
result, you can sometimes reach your prospect directly by calling
during off hours. The best times to try this are: early morning7:00
A.M. to 9:00 A.M., lunchtimenoon to 1:00 P.M., or late afternoon/early

evening5:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M.

Be aware of your prospect's reaction to being "caught" answering
the phone at these hours. Some like it. They feel less pressured and
more relaxed than during "official" business hours and may be
more willing to talk. You can always develop a sense of
camaraderie with a comment like, "I see you're working late like
me. We seem to do that a lot in our business, don't we?" But say
this only if you can be sincere. Don't say it if you feel phony.
On the other hand, if you sense the prospect has been caught
offguard and is uncomfortable with the fact that you've reached
him or her, quickly explain who you are and why you are calling,
ask if it's a convenient time, and if it's not, set an appointment to
call back at a specific time and date. What you'll find most often,
though, is that the prospect's initial shock and reluctance quickly
wears off, and most will happily chat with you a few minutes.
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The Answer/Ask Strategy
The answer/ask, or A/A strategy, was invented by sales trainer Bill
Bishop and is described in his newsletter, Master Prospector. The
technique basically involves "turning the tables" on secretaries,
receptionists, and other filters by answering their questions with a
question.
As Bill explains, "My A/A strategy is a technique guaranteed to get
you past the secretary to the decision maker. The first A stands for
answer. This means you answer filters' questions, instead of
playing evasive cat-and-mouse games that tell filters you are a
salesperson. The second A stands for ask, meaning you ask filters a
question in between your initial answer to their question, and
before they ask you another filtering question.
"To summarize, A/A means answer/ask. Don't be evasive. Answer
their initial filtering question, and before they can ask another, you
ask them a question. This prevents them from asking additional
filtering questions, and you'll get the decision maker on the line."
Continues Bill, "Taking the A/A a step further, you can answer
their question with a question." This is the way I personally use
Bill's technique. Let's look at an example.
Receptionist: Good morning. Acme Widgets.
You: Mr. Big, please.
Receptionist: May I tell him who's calling?
You: Would you tell him you have Bill Bishop holding, please?
See the technique? If you simply answer "It's Bill Bishop calling,"
you set the secretary up for her next screening question, designed
to block your call. But instead, when you answer with a
question"Would you tell him you have Bill Bishop holding,
please?"the reasonable response is for the filter to answer in the
affirmative and put you through. Naturally, the secretary or
receptionist will say, "Yes, I'll tell him." What else is she going to
say? "No, I won't tell him"?
Once in a while you'll get a tough filter who will come back with
the second filtering question. Here's how the A/A strategy handles
it:
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Receptionist: And who are you with, Mr. Bishop?
You: Would you tell him my company is Bill Bishop Associates,
please?
Again, if you just said, "My company is Bill Bishop Associates,"
the likely response would be, "And what is this in reference to?" or
"Does he know you?" But when you say, "Would you tell him my
company is Bill Bishop Associates, please?" the natural response
is, ''Yes, I'll tell him." Can you imagine the receptionist saying,
''No, I won't tell him"?
Suppose you get that ultra-tough filter who bounces back with a
third screening question. Here's an example:
Receptionist: And what is this in reference to?
You: Would you please tell him that I'm calling about [state the
purpose of your call)?
The beauty of answer/ask questions is you can't get a no answer
from the filter. Consider how awkward a filter's responses would
be:
You: Would you please tell him I'm with Bill Bishop Associates?
Receptionist: No.
Filters generally won't answer the question negatively. Instead, they
signify a yes by connecting you to the prospect.
Will answer/ask eliminate all secretarial screening? No. But it will
reduce the number of screening questions and get you through in a
certain percentage of cases where you wouldn't normally have been
connected.
Call-Backs
Here's a frequent scenario:
You: Mr. Prospect, please.
Secretary: Mr. Prospect in a meeting. Would you like to leave your
name and number so I can ask him to call you back?
There are two ways to handle this. The first is to put the burden on
the prospect's shoulders by leaving your name and number and
saying,
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"Yes, please have him call me." While this is convenient for you,
there are some dangers in this, as Bill Bishop points out. Namely,
here's what might happen:
You might not be in when the prospects calls back and many
people don't like talking to answering services, answering
machines, or voice mail systems.
You'll be in, but on another call and will have to put the first
prospect on hold while you take the second prospect's call.
The prospects, suspecting you're trying to sell something, probably
won't return your call.
The prospect returns your call and you answer, "Good morning!
John Doe Consulting Service!" The prospect's thoughts are
confirmed that you called to sell and not to buy.
The prospect calls, isn't fazed by the way your phone is answered,
and catches you by surprise. You've forgotten his name and why
you called him. Imagine what he thinks!
"I must get two or three calls every day from stockbrokers who
leave their name and a call-back number for me," says Bill. "The
return call goes something as follows."
Him: Hello, this is Bob Broker.
Bill Bishop: This is Bill Bishop returning your call.
Him: Uh, well, ahh, ugh, gee er, umm. Why did I call you, Bill?
"Well," continues Bishop, "if he doesn't know why he called, I'm
sure not going to help him figure it out. The moral is, don't leave
your name and number." Instead, advises Bishop, follow this script:
 Secretary: Mr. Prospect is in a meeting. Would you like to leave your
name and number so I can ask him to call you back?
You: I'd like to, but I'm going out shortly. When do you think he'll be
free?
Secretary: Well, let's see, it's 10:20 A.M, so I'd say he'd call you
about 10:45 A.M.
 Page 350
You: Gee, unfortunately, I'll be gone by then. When do you think I
should try him again?
Secretary: Well, he likes to come in earlyaround 7:15so you could
likely catch him then.
You: Okay, I'll try him later today or tomorrow morning, okay?
Secretary: Okay. Bye.
Notice how everything you say ends with a question (the
answer/ask technique in action). You learn precisely when the
prospect will be in to receive your call, all without being sneaky or
evasive.
Perhaps the best attitude to take with secretaries, receptionists, and
other filters and gatekeepers is to treat them with respect and
dignity, rather than view them as roadblocks to be pushed out of
your way. Many, many of your competitors treat secretaries with
indifference or even as inferiors, never stopping to realize there's a
human being behind that telephone headset or word processor. If
you do acknowledge the secretaries' existence and treat them
decently, with common courtesy, you'll be at the top of their list of
favorite people.
And if you think this goodwill doesn't translate into action, you're
wrong. Secretaries who like you will go out of their way to put
your call through, make sure your fax gets on the boss's desk, and
in general do everything to help you succeed. Secretaries who
dislike you will sabotage your efforts, helping your competitors
beat you out for the business.
You don't have to shower assistants with gifts to win them over.
Learning their name and calling them by name when you telephone
is a nice first step; many people never bother to learn the name of
the secretary or receptionist. If, after a few calls, they recognize
you and seem inclined toward making a few pleasantries over the
phone, do likewise. Getting to knowand treatingthe secretaries like
people is the best way you can get them on your side.
At our office, in addition to entering the prospect's name in our
contact database record for that company, we enter the secretary's
name, as well. We gather the same kind of personal
informationbirthdays, hobbies, interests, childrenon secretaries as
we do on their bosses. We treat secretaries as real people, not just
barriers between us and the decision maker. This makes them our
ally, not our enemy.
 Page 351

What about Voice Mail?

An assistant can be persuaded to help you, but a voice mail system
can't. More and more prospects, especially in corporations, use
voice mail as a way of screening calls, including sales calls. This
makes it tougher, but not impossible, to reach them.
One technique that works, as we already discussed, is calling them
at off-hours. They won't be expecting calls early in the morning or
late at night, and will often answer their own phone.
Another technique, which can work only once for any given
prospect, is to leave a "partial message," giving prospects the
impression that the rest of your message accidentally got cut off by
the voice mail system. You start talking a second before the voice
mail system beeps to allow you to record, so your message sounds
something like this:
". . . so give me a call and we can discuss it. That's Joe Jones at (212)
555-5555. I look forward to hearing from you."
The prospects have your contact information but think the first part
was cut off. So they have no clue as to why you called. Their
curiosity is aroused, and besides, they don't want to risk not
connecting with you if the call in fact is important to them.
This technique will get prospects to return your calls 20 to 40
percent of the time you leave a voice mail. But you can use it only
once for each prospect. If you use it a second time, you
immediately reveal that you have tricked the prospect with a sales
technique and will probably lose them as a customer.
Another effective method is to leave a voice mail message saying
who you are, and that you will call the prospect tomorrow at such
and such a time. When you call, and you get a secretary, she will
ask, "Is he expecting your call?" Because of the voice mail
message you left the day before, your answer is "yes." This works
well when you get the secretary or receptionist on the call back. If
you get voice mail again, you keep trying until a human picks up
the phone.
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19
Trade Shows
Every year, industry spends more than $7 billion to exhibit its
wares at trade shows and expositions throughout the country. There
are more than 9,000 shows each year, so you can be sure there's a
show specializing in whatever it is you do; there are shows for
everything from chemicals to construction, from farm equipment to
pharmaceuticals, from textiles to telecommunications.
At first glance, it seems as if exhibiting at trade shows is too
expensive for a small company. And there's some truth to that at
least where the major national shows are concerned. For example,
when you consider the cost of travel, lodging, shipping, space, and
materials, a manufacturer in Wichita could easily spend $10,000 to
$20,000 on a 10-foot booth at the Computer Sales Exposition in
New York City. Obviously, continent hopping is beyond the
budgets of many small businesses.
But there are alternatives. Regional shows. "Table-top" shows.
County fairs. State fairs. Public shows. Chamber of commerce
exhibitions. And thousands of other small, local shows that make
sense for small business. The questions are: Where do you find out
about these shows? And how do you pick the ones that are right for
you?
 Page 354

Selecting Trade Shows

Choosing the right trade show is like selecting advertising media or
publicity outlets. You pick the places that let you reach the most
prospects at the lowest possible cost.
Begin with a comprehensive listing of local and national shows.
Write to the Trade Show Exhibitors Association (see Appendix) for
more information. Trade journals and business publications will
include monthly listings of shows and conferences in your
particular industry. And your local convention and exhibit bureau
can give you the latest information on fairs and expos in your city
or town.
From these listings, you'll glean perhaps a dozen or so showsshows
you might exhibit in because they're local, or because they are
applicable to your type of business. Write to the management of
each of these shows, and ask for a prospectus or other literature.
You'll want to know how many people are expected to attend the
show, how many have attended past shows, where these people
come from, what industries they represent, what job titles they
hold. In short, are they the type of people that want, need, and can
afford to buy your products?
Are your competitors exhibiting? That's one sure sign that the show
may be worth attending. Is the show a new one, or is it well
established? Select shows that have proven their worth. Too many
fly-by-night expos spring up one year and are gone the next. And
the companies that invest in them are usually thousands of dollars
poorer for their efforts.
What to Show at a Show
Assuming you do sign up for one or more of these shows, what will
you display there? And why?
The most compelling reason for your company to participate in a
trade show is to introduce a new product to the marketplace.
According to studies by the Trade Show Bureau, 50 percent of the
people attending any given show are there to see new products and
services. So if you've invented the better mousetrap, motor, or
metal detector, a trade show may be the place to show it off. But if
you're selling the same old thing, avoid trade shows and try some
other promotion, such as a trade ad or direct mail campaign.
 Page 355
The best way to get people to notice your new product?
Demonstrate it. To your prospects, seeing new products in action is
the main reason for going to shows. Live action is the one thing
that separates a show from print promotions. At the show, attendees
can see your product. Touch it. Feel it. Smell it. Compare it with
the competitor whose booth may be right next to your own.
Prospects can't discuss product features with an advertisement;
printed pages don't speak when they're spoken to. But at the show,
buyers see whether your orange juice machine really can squeeze
five gallons an hour. Or whether it filters out the pulp. And if they
want to know what kind of price break they can get if they buy
juicers in bulk, they can get a straight answer from a real live
salesperson right then and there.
Unfortunately, straightforward demonstrations can produce more
yawns than inquiries since most products and equipment are, let's
face it, just plain boring. (Ever hear of someone flying 300 miles to
see a sump pump in action?)
If your product is nuts and bolts, make the demonstration a little
less mundane by adding a touch of flair to the display. For
example, a defense contractor was exhibiting helicopters at an Air
Force show. In the middle of the display area was the hull of a
chopper that had been struck point blank by an enemy missile. Its
windshield was cracked, its armor plating buckled by the impactbut
that was all. The helicopter had survived the attack. And so, a huge
sign taped to the windshield told us, as did its two pilots. A most
impressive display, combining drama with convincing product
demonstration.
You don't have to be selling weapons to set up an interesting,
unusual product demonstration that will bring the crowds swarming
to your booth. One small manufacturer of scuba equipment built a
huge Plexiglas "fish tank" for its booth. The tank was about eight
feet high and six feet wide, and inside it swam a swimsuit-wearing
beauty who stayed underwater all day, aided by, you guessed it, the
exhibitor's marvelous scuba gear. Cost of the tank? About $800less
than a third the cost of placing a full-page ad in a trade journal. The
results? A booth jam-packed with prospects; a demonstration that
was the hit of the show.
Want to get people to take a look at your orange juice squeezer?
Offer a glass of fresh squeezed OJ to everybody who stops by to
take a peek. Are passersby walking past your display of home
video games? Get them to stop and take notice by challenging them
to beat the highest score
 Page 356
on Pac-Man or Space Invaders and by giving free game cartridges
to the top ten players. Selling a minicomputer that works like
magic? Have a professional magician on hand to demonstrate its
features in a magical way.
As with any promotion, the first step in successful trade shows is
getting the prospect's attention. Product demonstrations,
giveaways, contests, and entertainment are four attention grabbers
that will pull people from the aisle into your booth. And that's
where the selling starts.
Successful Trade Show Selling
Retailers may take orders at the show, but the bulk of trade show
exhibitors manufacturers don't. Instead, they use shows to
introduce new products or new applications of old products. They
use shows to make contacts. Build prospect lists. Be seen by
decision makers. Talk to customers. And distribute sales literature.
Trade shows are an unusual hybrid of advertising and personal
selling. Advertising, because you pay for a space (in the case of a
show, it's an actual space on the floor). And personal selling,
because once the display attracts the prospect to the booth, the
salesperson has to do the rest. So, although this is a book on
promotion, not salesmanship, we're going to take a brief look at
personal selling as it applies to the trade show.
To begin with, picture this scene: The prospect, attracted by the
flashing lights, bells, whistles, and sirens of your product
demonstration, walks toward the booth. You say, "May I help
you?" The prospect's reply? A hastily muttered "No, thank you"
followed by a quick exit away from your booth. ''May I help you?"
the standard department store lead-in is the worst way to introduce
yourself. If the prospect isn't intimately familiar with what you're
selling and chances are, he's not, he'll feel threatened by this
challenge. It will scare him off.
Instead, draw the prospect into conversation by asking a friendly,
non-threatening question about business. A general question. If
you're selling globe valves to petroleum engineers, don't say, "Are
you thinking of buying our model X-100 valve?" Ask: "Do you
specify valves in your work?" A "no" answer means you're not
talking with a qualified prospect; a
 Page 357
"yes" tells you to keep the conversation going. Then find out the
prospect's problem. And show him or her how your product can
solve it. Get chummyglance at the prospect's badge or ID tag so
you can address him by name. Be personal. Friendly. And helpful.
But not pushy.
A cardinal rule of trade show selling: stay on your feet. People will
not disturb you if you're resting your rear in a chairin other words,
you can't sell if you're seated. So stand. If you need a rest, have
someone take your place while you walk around the exhibit hall or
stop at the snack bar. But no napping in the booth, please.
Another cardinal rule of trade show selling: don't gab with friends
and fellow employees when you're manning the booth. Strangers
will not interrupt a conversation between friends; instead, they will
pass by and stop at a display where the sales help isn't so occupied.
Need to chat with the boss or your assistant for a few minutes?
Find a nice quiet corner outside of the display area. In addition,
business etiquette expert Ann Chadwell Humphries gives the
following suggestions for maximizing trade show results:
Dress nicely.
Keep the booth clean.
Welcome people. Stand to greet them. Be prepared.
Be interested. Don't just talk about yourself; talk about others.
Eat privately. Keep your drinks and food inconspicuous.
Thank visitors for coming.
A question I get asked frequently is: "Should we hand out our
brochure to everyone who asks for it?" Well, there are pros and
cons to this practice. The pro of having literature on hand is that
you can quickly satisfy prospects' hunger for more information.
And the brochure serves as a permanent reminder of their visit to
your booth. On the con side, sales literature is costly to produce,
and handing out a fancy four-color brochure to thousands of
people, regardless of whether they're serious sales prospects, can be
an expensive proposition.
The alternativenot having literature at the showalso has its pros and
cons. Without a large supply of brochures, you will have to take
 Page 358
down the names and addresses of the people who request
information in order to mail the literature at a later date. (Many
shows issue each attendee a plastic show card much like a credit
card. When the attendee hands you the card, you use a special
imprinter, also supplied by show management, to instantly record
the sales lead on preprinted forms.) This technique can work to
your advantage, allowing you to build a list of prospects who have
expressed interest in your product. A negative is that you've now
got to mail thousands of brochures, where before, literature was
there for the taking. Also, this system delays getting the brochure
into the buyer's hands and that could hurt sales if the buyers are in
a hurry.
Here's my solution: Keep a small sampling of your literature on a
table or in a display rack in open view for everyone to see. If
prospects want a brochure, take down the information and mail it
later if, in your judgment, the prospects mean business. If you think
the people are just collecting brochures, then you can note this on
the lead form or their business card, and mail the literature or not,
as you choose. Behind the display or under the table, you'll have a
surplus supply of several hundred brochures on hand. These are to
be distributed to hot prospects who are really serious about your
product and want to get down to business right away. With a little
practice, you'll be able to tell the buyers from the brochure
collectors without a second glance.
Finally, a few more tips to improve your trade show selling:
Develop a Schedule for Manning the Booth. Even Super
salespeople will get tired, cranky, and bored after eight hours of
standing in a 10-by-10-foot display filled with file cabinets or
fishing poles. Let your salespeople man the booth in two-hour or
four-hour rotation shifts, so prospects are always greeted by a
salesperson who's relatively fresh and lively. Naturally, the busier
the traffic (flow of people through your booth), the more booth
personnel you'll need. Plan the booth duty roster accordingly.
Experience teaches us that shows are busy during the middle days,
and slower during their start and finish. As an example of this, take
a look at the attendance figures for the Exposition of Chemical
Industries:
Day one4,341 attendees
Day two5,417 attendees
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Day three6,016 attendees
Day four2,850 attendees
Reduce Prices on Products Sold at the Show. The opportunity to
pick up merchandise at reduced cost gives prospects a reward for
having taken the time and trouble to visit your display.
Use Preshow Promotion to Build Booth Traffic. Use advertising,
publicity, and direct mail to get prospects to come to the show. For
a nominal cost, show management will provide artwork, stickers,
mail stuffers, and invitations you can use in your own promotions;
this material can easily and inexpensively be imprinted with your
company logo and the number of your booth. Include an imprinted
show invitation with invoices, literature mailings, personal letters,
and other day-to-day correspondence. And don't forget to mention
the show in your ads.

Trade Shows Versus Expos: Some Definitions

We've been using the terms trade show, exposition, and fair
interchangeably in this discussion. But they're really not the same
thing, and we need to clarify our terms before we go any further.
By strict definition, a trade show is limited in attendance to those
who meet certain qualifications by virtue of their occupation or
industry. Some major national trade shows include the Farm
Progress Show, the National Restaurant Show, the Association of
Operating Room Nurses Congress, and the National Computer
Conference.
An exposition, on the other hand, is open to the general public.
Anyone can go, provided he or she is willing to pay the price of
admission (usually less than $10). The two types of expositions are
outdoor state and county fairs, which focus on agriculture, and
public shows, which include garden shows, automobile shows, boat
shows, and other hobby-related shows.
At trade shows, the audience is more select. If you sell products to
highly specific marketsengineers, doctors, chemical plants,
restaurant
 Page 360
ownersconcentrate your exhibit efforts on trade shows. However,
for small businesses whose prospects are bound by geography and
not by profession or industry, the best bet is local expos.

Producing the Display

If you look around at any show, you'll see that most exhibitors have
some kind of display in their booths. This display can be as simple
as a few photo blowups hung on a curtain, or as complex as a
custom-made exhibit constructed out of 26d, plastic, or metal and
equipped with overhead signs, rear projection screens, illuminated
photo displays, animated graphics, movable walls, Plexiglas
product display cases, and removable graphic panels.
Cost increases with complexity, and anything more involved than
the simplest portable display is far beyond what 90 percent of small
businesses can afford. But simple does not necessarily mean cheap
or ineffective, and a practical working display can be had for less
than $2,000.
To begin with, you need to purchase a basic exhibit systemthe self-
standing structure that will contain the product photos, copy, and
other graphics of your display. You will probably want a portable
displaythat is, a display that can fold up into an oversized suitcase
or other container and be carried by one person. If you can't carry
it, you'll have to ship it; and with freight, drayage, labor, storage,
and insurance costs what they are today, shipping will eat up your
budget in no time flat. So avoid it. Get a display you can lug
around in the back of your station wagon or company van. If you
exhibit in out of state shows, be sure the display can be carried on a
plane as ordinary luggage.
Purchase a portable display that is easy to carry, easy to pack, and
can be set up and dismantled quickly and with a minimum of time
and trouble. See a demonstration before you buy. If a trained
salesperson can't set up the display in the showroom, you can bet
that you'll have trouble, too. Avoid displays made of wood; they're
heavy and easily damaged. Prefer lighter, more durable displays
made of extruded plastic or a lightweight metal, such as aluminum.
When it comes to trade show graphics, we have just three rules:
Keep it simple, keep it big, keep it bold. Grab people's attention
with
 Page 361
bright colorful photo blowups and bold color graphics. Incorporate
your company name and logo into the graphics and make the logo
big. Headlines should be short, pithy, and large enough to read
from the aisle without eyestrain.
Don't cram your graphic panels with every available piece of
technical information about your product. The type will be too
small to read, and the customer won't spend enough time in your
booth to get through it all. (According to Trade Show Bureau
research, the average trade show attendee spends only three
minutes at any given booth.) Besides, the purpose of a trade show
display is to attract customers to the booth, not do the whole selling
job. If people want more detailed information, hand them a
brochure.
Consult a professional trade show exhibit designer if you can, and
see what materials and techniques are available. For example,
product samples and graphic panels can be easily mounted on the
display structure using Velcro, which allows you to ''hook" solid
objects together. Transparent Plexiglas panels can be used to cover
and protect pictures and graphics that could otherwise be damaged
in handling. Carpet and cloth are frequently used on graphic panels
to give displays a warm "homey" look and feel. Go to some trade
shows. Take a look at what works. And what doesn't.
A Checklist for Exhibit Managers
Much of handling trade show exhibits can only be learned by
doing. It's a trial-and-error business, and one where mistakes are
inevitable.
There are so many little niggling details that must be attended to
when you're in charge of your company's trade show display. Did
we order the right color carpet? How can we fit our 12-foot high
display in an exhibit hall with a 10-foot high ceiling? Can show
management provide us with the right kind of electricity to run our
imported electric motor that is designed for Japanese outlets?
Are there enough brochures in stock to cover us for the show, or
must we print more? Who's going to come in to man the booth on
Saturday? Do we have up-to-date releases and photos for the press?
Can we get our computer through the door of the exhibit hall? The
list goes on. And on.
 Page 362
Slipups, goofs, lost shipments, and other problems are standard fare
for even the most seasoned trade show pros; there are just more
tasks involved than any one person can keep an eye on all the time.
To help you get through this ordeal, we've compiled a checklist of
things to do that should help you plan effectively and cut down on
errors. Trade shows do require much advanced planning, and you
should look over this checklist at least three months before the
opening of the show.
Here, then, are the things to do before you go to the show:
Visit the show hall, if possible. Check out the display area for space
limitations, plumbing and electrical supplies, and overall
appearance.
Set a budget for the show. Include exhibit construction, shipping,
drayage, storage, plumbing, carpenters, electrical, labor, furniture
and carpet rental, printing, models, product demonstration, travel,
food, lodging, and the cost of the space.
Look over the show regulations carefully. Don't base your display
around a demonstration of your firecrackers only to find out on
opening day that loud noises are forbidden in the exhibit hall.
If you can't carry it with you, work out the details of shipping and
storage for your display, literature, and products.
Build shipping crates for exhibit material. Be sure the crates are
marked so they can be identified at a glance. Crates are often
misplaced at shows, and painting your crates with odd colors or
distinctive markings can help make finding them easier.
Order any special services you'll need for the boothelectricity,
running water, drainage, compressed air, lighting, or signs. Also
order carpets, furniture, and any labor you may need.
Check your inventory of sales literature and product samples. Do
you have enough, or will more have to be ordered?
Work out a booth duty roster. Obtain badges or entrance passes for
booth personnel, other employees, and your customers.
Plan publicity, direct mail, and advertising to support the trade
show effort.
 Page 363
Order premiums you'll be giving away at the show.
Order invitations, stickers, logos, and other promotional material
from show management.
Make hotel and travel reservations.
Construct your display. If you already have a display, take it out of
the case and inspect it. Are the graphics up-to-date and reflective of
what you're selling at this particular show? Also check for damage
and make any necessary repairs.
Hire models, magicians, demonstrators, and any outside talent you
need.
Set up a system to handle inquiries and literature distribution at the
booth.
Check all details with show management and outside vendors,
including freight handlers, printers, van lines, and hotels.
Using Direct Mail to Get Prospects and Customers to Come to the
Show and Visit Your Booth
Direct mail, in the hands of a knowledgeable pro, can be a
powerful promotion that builds traffic, targets key prospects,
generates sales leads, fills conference rooms, and creates an
awareness of an event and your participation in it. Or gets the word
out about your products and services.
Unfortunately, most trade-show direct mail I see violates the
fundamentals of successful direct marketing. For this reason, few
of these mailings generate anywhere near the desired response.
(How many of your mailings produce the results you want or
expect?)
Here are ten proven techniques for creating direct mail that works.
Try them in your next letter or invitation and watch your response
rate soar.
1. The Importance of the List
Even the most brilliant package will flop if it is mailed to the
wrong list. Selecting the right mailing list is the most important
step in ensuring
 Page 364
direct mail success. According to Freeman Gosden, Jr., author of
Direct Marketing Success, list selection is twice as important as
copy, graphics, and printing combined.
For a trade show invitation, the best list is key prospects and
current customers within a 100-mile radius of the exhibit hall.
Invite only those people who are genuine prospects for the products
you are featuring in your display. One good source of names might
be a list of people who have responded to ads about the product
within the past six months.
2. Executive Seminars
An even more select list of key prospects can be targeted to receive
special invitations to hospitality suites, executive briefings,
presentations of papers, seminars, and other special events held in
conjunction with your exhibit. If the event is relatively minor, a
notice about it can be included in the invitation to the exhibit. But,
if the event is major (such as the opportunity to see a new product
introduction), you can play it up in a separate mailing.
3. Carry Cards
A carry card, mailed with the invitation, is a printed card the
prospect can prevent at your booth to receive a small gift, or
perhaps to enter a sweepstakes or drawing. I call it a "carry card"
because prospects must carry it with them to receive whatever is
offered in the mailing.
By printing your booth number on the card, you remind the
prospect to visit you; the offer of the gift provides the incentive to
do so. The gift need not be expensive or elaborate; perhaps you
offer free information, such as a special report, or an inexpensive
item such as a pen or tie clip.
4. Be Personal
The more personal a mailing price, the greater the response. One
effective technique is to personalize each mailing with the
prospect's name. A form letter, for example, can be made to look
personal if produced on a word processor using a program that
inserts the prospect's name and address.
 Page 365
There are other ways of individualizing the mailings. Carry cards
or invitations can be numbered in sequence; therefore, each person
receives a unique number, which may be used to qualify him or her
to receive a prize or other gift.
Another technique is for salespeople to write brief handwritten
notes to each prospect. The note, written in the margin of a
preprinted form letter or on the flap of a formal invitation, adds a
personal touch to the communication.
5. Urgency
Direct mail is a medium designed to generate an immediate
response. Therefore, your mailing must give the reader reason to
read and act now.
A teasera short message written on the outer envelopeis often used
to urge the reader to open the mailing right away. For example, it
can tell the reader that the envelope contains dated materials. It can
stress the importance of attending the show or emphasize benefits.
Or, it can tell the recipient to take actionfor example, the teaser
copy could read, "Urgent: open by November 15." Such a letter
should be mailed so that it arrives a few days before the fifteenth.
If you want the reader to RSVP your invitation, you should create a
sense of urgency for this too. The close of an invitation to a
seminar might say, "But hurry. Attendance is limited. Reserve your
seat at this important briefing today."
6. Give Them a Choice
Years ago, direct marketers discovered that they received greater
response when the reader was given a choice. And this holds true
in trade show promotion. For example, many of the people you
invite will be unable to attend, even though they may have genuine
interest in the products being displayed. Why not have your
mailing do double duty by offering information or further action to
those people who can't come to the show? You could offer to send
them a brochure or a newsletter or to call on them in person and tell
them what they missed. One exhibitor even offered to send a
videotape of his exhibit! This technique can dramatically boost
response.
 Page 366
Always include a business reply card or business reply envelope in
mailings designed to elicit a response. Without these devices,
response drops to near zero.
7. Create an Event
Although it is difficult for our egos to accept, the truth is, your next
trade show is not a major event in the lives of your customers. Your
challenge, then, is to change their reaction from one of boredom to
one of excitement.
How? There are many possibilities. One exhibitor featured the
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders in his booth. Another had an exciting
multimedia presentation on a revolutionary new type of
technology. An instrumentation manufacturer employed a magician
to perform at his display. A major defense manufacturer hired a
quick-draw fighter to teach people how to use a six-shooter (with
blanks, of course!).
Once you've invented an event (one that generates real excitement
but also ties in with your product or theme), make this the feature
subject of your mailer. Just as publishers win subscribers by
featuring a free gift or a price discount, a successful trade show
mailing features the ''gimmick" rather than the exhibit itself. For
example, a mailing designed to draw people to the gunfighter
exhibit might read, "Meet the West's Fastest Gunfighter at High
Noon at the AMCOM Air Showand Win a Genuine, Old West Ten-
Gallon Hat." Here we are selling the sizzle rather than the steak.
8. Exclusivity
A powerful appeal of direct mailand of trade showsis exclusivity.
One study released by the Trade Show Bureau reported that half
the people who attend trade shows go specifically to see new
products and services that have not been shown before.
If you're introducing a new technology, a new product, or an
improved version of an old product, play this up in your mailing.
Emphasize both the importance of the product as well as the fact
that the reader is having an opportunity see it firstan opportunity
not extended to other people in the business. This sense of being
exclusive, of being first, is flattering, and it can do wonders for
your response rate.
 Page 367
9. Completing the Set
A classic trade show mailing is one in which prospects are mailed
an invitation along with a single cufflink. The cufflink is a free gift,
the letter explains, and readers will be given the other cufflink (to
complete the set) when they visit the manufacturer's booth at the
show.
This is a powerful technique, and if you can think of an appropriate
variation that is relevant to your sales pitch, use it. An automobile
manufacturer, for example, could mail key chains to important
customers and enroll them in a drawing for a brand new car. But to
win the car, they must bring the key chain to the drawing. The
mailing stresses how they can add a key to their chain (and the car
that goes with it) by visiting the show.
In another variation on this theme, Omron Electronics mailed a box
containing a fortune cookie. The fortune inside the cookie
predicted, "A fortune in your future!" at the ISA show in
Philadelphia. Copy on a carry card enclosed with the cookie
reinforces the message: "Bring this ticket to Omron's Booth #R631
to collect a fortune."
Note that the nature of the "fortune" is never specified. In direct
mail, you can often boost response by leaving a part of your story
untold. This creates a sense of mystery, and many people respond
simply to satisfy their curiosity.
10. Use a Series of Mailings
A series of mailings can generate more response than just a single
mailing. So it may pay to mail more than once to the same list of
people. Many exhibitors have used the following three-part mailing
format with success.
The first mailing is a simple postcard that "previews" the show. It is
used to tweak the reader's curiosity and interest, but demands no
response.
The second mailing is the full invitation package. It can consist of a
letter, an invitation, a carry card, a reply card, a booklet or
brochure, or any combination of these elements. The theory is that
more people will read the full invitation if they are "warmed-up"
with the postcard first.
The third mailing can be either a follow-up reminder or, if the
reader has responded to the invitation, it can be a letter confirming
the time, date, and location of the event.
 Page 368
Telemarketingthe use of telephone calls to follow-up direct mailcan
dramatically raise response levels. But, it is expensive: a phone call
generally costs about ten times more than a mailing piece. You
might want to save the telephone for targeting a small, exclusive
listsay, your top twenty or thirty clients or customers. They would
receive calls after the second or third mailing; the caller would
repeat the offer of the mailings and urge prospects to attend your
display.
Bonus tip: Here's one thing to keep in mind. Even if you design
your own invitation, it's a good idea to include an official show
pass or registration form in the envelope, as well. Having a show
pass gives your prospects the comfort and security of knowing they
have the necessary paperwork to get into the exhibit hall. You
should imprint your company name and booth number on the show
pass, so prospects will be reminded to visit you even if they throw
away the rest of your mailing.
 Page 369

20
Inquiry Fulfillment
When you think about how most companies do business-to-
business direct marketing, it's amazing. They spend countless
hours, and thousands of dollars, trying to come up with all sorts of
promotions designed to do one thing: generate sales leads. These
promotions are professionally produced, well written, and carefully
planned. The copy has been written by a pro, then checked and
rechecked through the corporate approval process. Now, if the
company has done things right, it is rewarded with the leads it is
seeking. These leads are expensivethey might cost $10, $20, $30,
or more per lead. Each one represents an opportunity to make a
sale.
So what do these companies do next? They mail out literature with
a photocopied, sloppily typed, hard-to-read cover letter that has no
"sell" in it at all. Often, there is no reply element, or instructions on
what to do next. The result is that the brochure may be read or
filed, but no action is taken by the prospect. The hot lead grows
cold, and no sale is made.
I'm constantly amazed that companies spending huge amounts of
money to generate leads spend very little time and effort in the
follow-up of those leads. They mail a top-quality package to
generate the lead, then send out a poorly conceived follow-up
package.
 Page 370
Yet the inquiry fulfillment package is as important as the mailing
that generated the lead, and maybe more so. A good inquiry
fulfillment package can move the prospect to take actionthe next
step toward a purchase decision. A weak package can dampen
initial interest or, at best, do nothing to further the prospect's
interest.
This chapter looks at the elements of a successful inquiry
fulfillment package and also discusses the best way to follow up so
that the maximum number of leads is converted to sales. Although
the contents vary widely, a classic inquiry fulfillment package
usually includes the following: (1) outer envelope, (2) cover letter,
(3) reply element, (4) product brochure, and (5) inserts. Let's look
at each element in a bit more detail.

Outer Envelope
Mail your material flat in a 9-by-12-inch outer envelope. If your
package is bulky, consider using a padded envelope to protect the
material. First impressions are important, and prospects are put off
by brochures that are crinkled or ripped.
The outer envelope should be imprinted or rubber stamped with
either of the following teasers:
Here Is the Information You Requested
or
Here Is the Information You Asked Us to Send You
Without this message, prospects might mistake your package,
which they requested, for unsolicited direct mail. And, because
prospects are more likely to open and read material they sent away
for than a direct mail package they didn't ask for, you need this
teaser to identify your package as fulfillment material.
One business owner told me he doesn't stamp the outer envelopes
in his fulfillment kit because he thinks overyone uses "Here Is the
Information You Requested, and people are tired of seeing it. It's
true this is used widely, but I know of no substitute. And a blank
envelope risks being mistaken for direct mail. So use this teaser.
 Page 371

Cover Letter
Suppose you had responded to an advertisement from a
manufacturer of steel valves and requested more information. How
would you react to this reply?
Dear Sir:
Chemical Equipment magazine has informed us of your interest in
our line of valves for the chemical process industry.
Enclosed please find the literature you requested. We will await with
interest your specific inquiry.
Sincerely,
Joe Jones, Sales Manager XYZ Valve Corporation
This letter doesn't call for action, build trust in the letter writer, or
tell readers why they should want to buy valves from XYZ. There's
no salesmanship in it, just a blunt acknowledgment that an inquiry
has been made.
The tragedy is most letters mailed to fulfill business/industrial
inquiries are just about as bad. Too many marketers treat a cover
letter as an afterthought, once the pros at the ad agency have
written the ''important" elements of the communications
programads, brochures, and catalogs.
That's a big mistake. As creative consultant Sig Rosenblum aptly
puts it, "Ads go through a long process of roughs, comps, and
finished art. But these are just devices to put ideas into the reader's
mind. Your simple letters can carry powerful ideas just as easily as
your complex ads."
Do they? Circle some bingo card numbers and see for yourself. The
responses you receive will include weak, dreary cover letters that
rely on hackneyed expressions like "enclosed please find,"
"pursuant to your request," and the ever-boring ''as per your
inquiry." That's not selling. When clichés substitute for copy that
expresses a company's desire to help prospects solve problems, hot
leads can quickly turn cold.
 Page 372
Part of the problem is that nonwriters such as product managers
and engineers often write cover letters. Management reasons that
the copywriter's time is better spent on ads and collateral. Yet the
letter provides the toughest writing challenge. It must sell on words
alone, without the embellishment of color, photos, or artwork.
Should you agonize over the cover letter and treat it as an
important promotion? Or is it just routine correspondence that
people throw away without a second glance, and therefore not
deserving of much attention? Opinions are split. Many industrial
manufacturers either don't use cover letters or else send out form
letters that are written so badly they are meaningless.
Companies doing classic two-step direct marketing (generate the
lead, convert to sale), on the other hand, will tell you that the cover
letter is an extremely important part of the fulfillment
packageperhaps the most important part. The cover letter, they say,
is what determines whether the prospect will order or not. What
about you? Do you need a great cover letter for your inquiry
fulfillment package? Here are some guidelines:
If you have a complete, clearly written sales brochure that tells the
whole story persuasively and in an interesting fashion, you don't
need an elaborate or hard-sell cover letter. Just a short note will do.
If you do not follow up inquiries by telephone and instead rely on
your fulfillment package to make the sale by mail, the cover letter
is all-important and is the primary vehicle for communicating the
sales message.
If you have a generic brochure that doesn't speak to the prospect's
particular application or market, a cover letter that addresses
specific concerns of prospects running those applications or
operating in those markets can help overcome the fact that the
brochure does not target the prospect's needs and concerns.
If you do not have a brochure, or if the brochure is mainly a visual
piece without much information, you can use a longer cover letter
to convey the missing information.
I think that an inquiry fulfillment letter enhances the selling power
of all inquiry fulfillment pieces, and I do not recommend mailing
your
 Page 373
inquiry fulfillment materials without one. A brochure mailed
"bare" in the mail somehow lacks warmth, appeal, and the human
touch most of us look for in today's fast-paced, impersonal, high-
tech business world.
Also, many prospects are so busy that they do not remember
requesting your literature even when you respond to their requests
immediately. The letter orients prospects, reminding them of who
you are and why they requested your company's literature in the
first place.
Most inquiry fulfillment letters are dull and lifeless, or so generic
as to be meaningless. If yours put you to sleep, rewrite them so
they are breezy, light, fun to read, and interestingmuch like any
good direct mail letter. Here are some guidelines for writing the
inquiry fulfillment letter.
The key to successful cover letters? Be friendly, courteous, and
helpful. Tell readers how you will help them solve their problem
better, faster, or cheaper than the competition. Here are seven letter
writing tips:
1. Thank the Prospect for the Lead
"Thanks for your interest" is a common opener. It may be
becoming a cliché. But it's still a necessary courtesy.
2. Highlight Key Sales Points
Don't try to summarize your sales literature, but instead pick one or
two of the important sales points and emphasize them in your letter.
Letters are handy supplements to literature because they can
include any recent developments that a color brochure, with its
longer life, may not reflect. Your letter can focus on a recent case
history, a new application, a product improvement, or an addition
to your manufacturing facility. If you must include more than two
or three sales points, you can use bullets or numbers to set them
apart (as this article does). Here's a sample from the Spartan Co.:
Dear Mr. Guterl:
Thanks for your interest in our Dry S02 Scrubbing Systems for
industrial and utility air pollution control.
Unlike conventional "wet" Dry Scrubbing removes chemical and
particulate waste products as a free-flowing dry
 Page 374
powder that is easy to handle and safe to dispose of. The system
produces no sludgeso you don't need expensive thickeners, clarifiers,
or other wastewater treatment equipment.
In addition to eliminating the sludge problem, Dry Scrubbing gives
you these advantages:
Less energy consumption
Lower operating and capital costs
High system reliability; less maintenance
No reheat required
The enclosed brochure provides a fairly complete description of how
the system works. Our representative in your area, listed on the
"Spartan Reps" sheet, will be happy to answer your questions.
Sincerely,
Gary Blake, Product Manager Dry Scrubbing Systems
Notice how the writer structured the letter to give one feature (no
sludge) top billing, while still touching lightly on other important
advantages of the system. The letter makes some sales points and
whets the reader's interest in the literature he requested.
Avoid repeating the brochure. Don't use the cover letter to repeat
all the facts in the brochure or describe in detail the various
brochures you are sending. The brochures, if done properly, should
stand on their own, so there is no need to rewrite and repeat their
contents in your letter, or explain to the prospect the contents of
each brochure in the package.
Figure 20.1 shows a letter that commits this error, and you can see
how deathly dull it is. (Don't you agree this is typical of many of
the inquiry fulfillment letters you receive?)
 Page 375

FIGURE 20.1 TYPICAL FULFILLMENT LETTER

Mr. Ron Brick

Chemtech Corp.
Anytown, USA
Dear Mr. Brick:
Chemical Processing magazine has informed us of
your interest in the level detectors manufactured by
our firm for use in the chemical processing industry.
As you may perhaps know, we are one of the oldest
and most well-respected manufacturers of such
equipment, and our product line includes the
following types of level detectors: Beam Breaker,
Bubble Diaphragm, Capacitance, Conductive,
Differential Pressure, Displacer, Float and Tape,
Glass and Magnetic Gauge, Hydrostatic Pressure,
Inductive, InfraRed Microwave, Optic Sensor,
Paddle, Pressure-Sensitive, R-F Admittance,
Radiation, Sonic Echo, Strain Gauge, Thermal, Tilt,
Vibration, and Weight and Cable Le
Since you may also have requirements for our other
types of process equipment, we are enclosing our
All-Line Catalog and data sheets with the request
that you fill in the data sheets for the consideration
and recommendations of our engineering
applications. Finally, as our company is now in its
fourth decade of continuous service to its many
customers in this country and abroad, we are sending
along a reprint of our latest annual report, which will
give you more information on our activities. We will
await with interest your specific inquiries. Thank
you once again for contacting us.
Very Truly Yours,
John N. Guterl, President
 Page 376
What's wrong with this letter? Here are some of the typical
mistakes you see in this type of letter:
The paragraphs are too long. The whole letter looks dense and
intimidating to read.
The language and style is antiquated and stuffy. ("As you may
perhaps know . . ." "We will await with interest your specific
inquiries.")
The listing of types of level detectors is boring and should be on a
separate sheet (or at least the items should be separated by bullets
for easier reading).
There is an offer ("fill in the data sheets"), but the prospect is not
given a reason or benefit for doing so ("consideration and
recommendations" is vague and has little appeal). The sentence
also reads as if the writer is telling the reader to do work,
something your prospect wants to avoid.
There is too much about the company and its reputation. It comes
across as bragging.
Contrast this letter with Figure 20.2, which is not perfect, but is (in
my opinion) far superior.
The best inquiry fulfillment letters talk about the prospect's need or
problem and suggest definite steps the prospect can take to solve
that problem. These steps also lead, of course, to evaluation and
eventual purchase of the seller's product.
The letter in Figure 20.2 works because it outlines a specific step
(testing the five-gallon sample) that is relatively easy to do and
makes a lot of sense. It also gives the prospect a choice of options
for going further (exploratory test, full-day test run, rental, or
purchase). The language is friendly, informal, and conversational,
like one friend talking to another. This is what your letter should
sound like. Short paragraphs and indenting each paragraph further
add to the readability and appeal of this letter.
How long should the letter be? For most business-to-business and
industrial offers, a single page should suffice. However, I have seen
 Page 377

FIGURE 20.2 IMPROVED FULFILLMENT LETTER

Mr. L. Moore
Project Engineer
Spartan Co.
Anytown, USA
Dear Mr. Moore:
Thanks for your interest in our Pelletizers. Literature
is enclosed that will give you a good idea of the
simplicity of our equipment and the rugged, trouble-
free construction.
The key question, of course, is the cost for
equipment to handle the volume required at your
plant. Since the capacity of our Pelletizers will vary
slightly with the particulates involved, we'll be glad
to take a look at a random five-gallon sample of your
material. We'll evaluate it and get back to you with
our equipment recommendations. If you will note
with your sample the size pellets you prefer and the
volume you wish to handle, we can give you an
estimate of the cost involved.
From this point we can do an exploratory pelletizing
test, a full day's test run, or will rent you a
production machine with an option to purchase. You
can see for yourself how efficiently it works and
how easy it is to use. Of course, the equipment can
be purchased outright, too.
Thanks again for your interest. We'll be happy to
answer any questions for you. Simply phone or
write.
Very truly yours,
Robert G. Hinkle, Vice President, Sales
 Page 378
three- and four-page fulfillment letters that got read and were
effective. So it depends on how much you have to tell and whether
you can write a longer letter that will sustain a prospect's interest.
3. Tell Readers about the Next Step in the Buying Process
Make it easy for them. A portion of a good cover letter illustrates
the point. The writer suggests a course of action (sending in a
material sample for evaluation) that can solve the customer's
problem and result in the sale of a mineral pelletizer:
The key question, of course, is the cost of equipment to handle the
volume required at your plant. Because the capacity of our Pelletizers
will vary slightly with the particulates involved, we'll be glad to take
a look at a random five-gallon sample of your material. We'll evaluate
it and get back to you with our equipment recommendation. If you
will note with your sample the size pellets you prefer and the volume
you wish to handle, we can give you an estimate of the cost involved.
From this point on we can do an explanatory pelletizing test, a full
day's test run, or will rent you a production machine with an option to
purchase. You can see for yourself how efficiently it works and how
easy it is to use. Of course, the equipment can be purchased outright,
too.
4. Write in a Conversational Tone
Your sales letter is communication from one human being to
anothernot from one corporate entity to the next. Warmth, humor,
understanding, and an eagerness to be helpful are what make you
the super salesperson you are. Why not endow your letters with
those same positive qualities?
Note how the letter above uses a casual, almost folksy tone to win
the reader's confidence and attention. One way to achieve an easy,
natural style is to eliminate "whiskers" from your writingthose
hackneyed expressions that drain the life and personality from sales
letters. Antiquated phrases from the vocabulary of the bureaucrat
make people (and their companies) come across as stuffed shirts.
Here are some hackneyed expressions to avoid:
 Page 379
Enclosed please find . . .
Readers can find it on their own. Just say "I'm enclosing" or "Here
is."
When time permits . . .
Poetic, but inaccurate. Time doesn't permit; people do.
Please don't hesitate to call.
You really mean "feel free to call."
We are this date in receipt of . . .
Say instead, "Today we received."
As per your request . . .
Write, "As you requested."
Of even date . . .
Translation: "today."
Pursuant to your orders . . .
That's too formal. Just say, "As you requested," or "Following your
instructions."
Whereas . . .
Use "where" or "while."
Kindly advise . . .
As opposed to "unkindly"? It's unnecessary.
Hitherto, whereby, thereby, herein, therein, thereof, heretofore . . .
Avoid those archaic, stilted words.
5. Have a "You Orientation"
Good letter writers know that the word "you" may well be the most
important word in their vocabulary. A you orientation means
thinking about what readers need, want, and desire. It means not
tooting your own born. It means translating the technical features
of a product into benefits that help readers do their job, serve their
customers, and please their boss. And, it means addressing the
reader directly as "you." Remember, a sales letter is a personal
communication, not a cold recitation of scientific technicalities.
 Page 380
6. Be Concise
Use small words and short sentences. And break up the writing into
many short paragraphs. Brevity makes writing easy to read. Run-on
sentences and long chunks of unbroken text bore and intimidate
readers. It's best to get to the point in the fewest words possible.
Here's how the Acme Slide Rule Co. gets its message across in just
two tightly written paragraphs:
Dear Ms. Sherman:
Thanks for your interest in the Acme Slide Rule. This nostalgic item
has been used by thousands of scientists, technicians, and engineers
throughout the world. We feel that you, too, will find it a handy
reference tool in your work.
The Slide Rules are $10 each in quantities of less than 100, or $8 in
lots of 100 or more. If you'd like to obtain one or more of the Slide
Rules, just send your check or money order for the number you
desire. We will see to it that your order is handled promptly.
Cordially,
S. D. Jameson Customer Service Representative
7. Make it Look Professional
Print the letter on a good laser printer. Proofread to eliminate errors
in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and content. Or reproduce the
letter on your stationery using a high-quality offset press.
The Reply Element
In addition to the literature and cover letter, a fulfillment package
should contain a reply element. It can be a specification sheet, an
order form
 Page 381
or a questionnaire, and is called a bounce back because it ''bounces
back'' to the advertiser after prospects receive their initial package
and fill out and return the form.
Bounce backs are postage-paid postcards addressed to the
advertiser. They ask prospects to qualify themselves by answering
a few questions. Typically, a bounce-back questionnaire asks the
prospects' phone number, name, and address, the name and size of
their company, whether they specify or recommend a particular
type of product, current buying plans, applications, the names of
others in the company involved in the buying decision, whether the
prospects currently use the advertiser's products or those of a
competitor, whether the prospects want a salesperson to call and
whether the inquiry is for an immediate need, a future need, or
reference information only.
Bounce-back postcards may be separate from the rest of the
package, or they may be printed as tear-out inserts in brochures and
catalogs. Some companies combine the bounce-back questionnaire,
cover letter copy, and catalog information on a single sheet.
The inquiry fulfillment reply form should be designed so that it
brings back a stronger level of commitment than the initial mailing.
You might ask the prospects to provide certain information about
themselves and their requirements. Or you might actually ask for
the order. Again, it depends on the sales cycle for your particular
product.
The most common type of reply form used in inquiry fulfillment
packages is an 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheet of paper designed as a
questionnaire or fill-in spec sheet. It is printed on one or both sides.
These days, the primary method for returning it is via fax, and you
should encourage this. But also tell prospects where to mail it, if
they prefer mailing to faxing. Your phone number should also be
highlighted in case they prefer to call; many do not want to fill out
even simple forms and would rather go through the points in a
phone conversation with you.
I recommend you print the reply form on blue, pink, yellow, gold,
or other brightly colored stock, anything except white or off-white.
This makes it stand out from the other elements in the package and
draws attention to the fact that you have provided a mechanism the
prospect should use to take the next step. You can also draw
attention to the reply form by referring to it, by color, in your cover
letter. For example, write "Just complete and mail the enclosed
yellow Needs Assessment Form."
 Page 382
Give the form a title that creates the perception of importance.
Instead of reply form, you can call it an audit, needs assessment,
survey, questionnaire, specification sheet, or analysis sheet. If the
prospect gets a free estimate for filling in and returning the form,
call it a Free Estimate Request Form. If the form is used by the
prospect to communicate preliminary requirements, call it a
Preliminary Requirements Transmittal Form.
Do you need to include a reply envelope? No. The prospect will
either fax the form back or give it to a secretary, who will mail it in
a company envelope.
Most industrial marketing experts agree that the bounce back is an
integral part of the fulfillment package. "If you're not contacting
the respondent personally, you should have a bounce-back card,"
says Robert L. Sieghardt, president of Professional Sales Support, a
company that screens sales leads by telephone. Mr. Sieghardt says
55 percent of prospects will respond with a bounce-back card after
a series of three mailings in addition to the initial mailing.
Some advertisers respond to inquiries by mailing a bounce-back
card without an accompanying piece of literature. They hope to
avoid sending expensive sales brochures to students, competitors,
brochure collectors, and other nonprospects. But other firms
criticize the practice because it delays getting information to
respondents by creating an additional and unnecessary step in the
sales sequence.
"I think you're trying to kill response by not sending a brochure,"
says Larry Whisehant, advertising manager of Koch Engineering, a
manufacturer of chemical equipment. "The proper literaturewhat
the respondent is asking foris the most important part of the
package."
Mr. Sieghardt agrees: "By trying to screen leads with the bounce
back, manufacturers are asking prospects to do some of their work
for them."
No two marketers agree on what makes the perfect fulfillment
package. But one thing is clear: the advertiser who casually tosses a
brochure in the mail with a hastily dictated cover note is wasting
sales opportunities. The entire package must be designed to
generate action that leads to a sale. And to accomplish that, you
need three things: a clear, crisp cover letter that motivates
prospects; a brochure that informs them; and a bounce back or
other reply element that makes it easy for them to respond.
 Page 383

Product Brochure
As Larry Whisehant, advertising manager of Koch Engineering,
observes, the brochure is the most important element in the inquiry
fulfillment package. Virtually all business-to-business marketers
need a brochure describing their product or service; in today's
market, it is virtually impossible to do business without one. The
brochure is the accepted means of communicating product
information to someone who makes an inquiry. Without one, you
won't be taken seriously; people won't think you're a real company.
When I started in this business in 1979, I produced elaborate,
expensive, four-color brochures for my employer, an electronics
firm, with the typical brochure running sixteen to thirty-two pages.
The trend today is away from longer brochures. Most of the
brochures I now write for clients are four pages; some are six; and I
occasionally do eight and twelve pagers. But that's rarer and rarer.
The trend is also away from elaborately designed and expensively
printed full-color pieces toward simpler, less elaborate, less costly
two-color literature. With technology changing so rapidly, you risk
having an expensive brochure go out-of-date even while it's being
printed because your product specifications change. Less costly
brochures, produced in smaller press runs, are used today because
the smaller press run means you won't be throwing out quite as
many old brochures when the piece is updated and a new version
printed, which happens more and more frequently.
In fact, many companies are maintaining mechanicals of their
brochures in electronic form on in-house desktop publishing
systems and printing small quantities at a time. With the desktop
system, changes to a data sheet can be made in the morning and the
new sheets delivered by the printer in a few days.
How many different brochures you have is up to you. Some
companies like to have one brochure that fits all occasions and do
not tailor literature to the market. Other companies have separate
brochures for each product line, for each product, and even for
each application or market.
The trade-off is cost versus effectiveness. It costs more to do many
literature pieces tailored to different markets and applications; on
the other hand, such pieces speak more directly to the needs of
different
 Page 384
prospects and are therefore more effective. See Chapter 10 for
additional tips on producing brochures.

Inserts
Inserts are any pieces of paper (or any objects, for that matter) that
you put into an inquiry fulfillment package along with the brochure
and reply element. Typical inserts include:
Spec sheets and data sheets
Product briefs
Application notes
Case histories/user stories
Article reprints
Press releases
Reprints of letters from satisfied customers in the prospect's
business or industry
Fliers
Photos
Drawings and diagrams
Product samples
The question is whether to have one standard inquiry fulfillment
package that never varies or to customize each package by
selecting and adding inserts appropriate to each prospect's
requirements. The trade-off again is cost versus effectiveness.
Having a standard package saves time (and therefore money)
because it does not require someone to think about which inserts
are appropriate, pull them, and place them in the envelope. If you
receive huge quantities of inquiries from a large market of people
with a similar level of interest and needs, you should probably use
one standard package, as customization would be impractical and
probably not beneficial.
 Page 385
On the other hand, using a customized package allows you to
deliver to prospects an initial sales pitch that is much more relevant
and therefore interesting to them. If you handle a modest quantity
of inquiries, and your product or service is highly tailored to the
individual needs of each customer, you should probably start
building a file of inserts so each package can be tailored to the
interests of that particular prospect.
You can determine what should be sent to prospects either by
reviewing their answers to questions you posed on the reply form
they used to make their initial inquiry, or by making a brief follow-
up call and asking a few pertinent questions before mailing your
material.
I have used both types of packages for clients and myself. In my
copywriting business, I send out highly customized inquiry
fulfillment kits, taking time to select article reprints and
copywriting samples relevant to the prospect's needs. In my
seminar business, however, I have standard fact sheets on each
program, and these go out with the same demo tapes and
background material to every prospect. The choice of whether to
customize depends on your resources, your product or service, and
the nature of the customers you serve.
Folder
An optional element of the inquiry fulfillment kit is the pocket
folder. The folder is usually printed on glossy stock, with the
company name, logo, and possibly some artwork or graphic design
on the front cover. Inside there are one or two pockets for holding
the various brochures and other inserts. Often one pocket is die-cut
to hold a business card. The back is either blank or imprinted with
the company logo or a continuation of the front cover graphic.
Such folders are optional, and I have no strong feeling about them
one way or the other. They do add expense, so if the cost of inquiry
fulfillment is an issue with you, you probably don't want to use a
folder, and the package will likely be just as effective without it.
On the other hand, if conveying a professional, high-class quality
image is important, and the extra 50 cents or $1 for the folder isn't
a big factor, use pocket folders if you so desire. They're especially
useful if your fulfillment kits have lots of different brochures and
inserts that must be held together.
 Page 386

How Quickly Must You Respond to Inquiries?

The answer is: faster than ever. Modern innovations such as
modems, the fax, electronic bulletin boards, and voice mail have
made your prospect accustomed to instant gratification when it
comes to getting information. Nowadays, when customers or
clients want something done, they usually want it yesterday. The
same holds true for many prospects requesting information on your
product or service. I have seen this firsthand in my own business:
The more serious the prospects and the more genuine their interest,
the more likely they are to be in a hurry to get your material.
So how quickly should you respond to inquiries? The inquiry
fulfillment package should be mailed first class to prospects within
forty-eight hours of your receipt of the sales lead. If you will be
much slower than that, you might consider sending a postcard
acknowledging receipt of their request and telling them that a
package is on its way. The postcard should include a telephone
number prospects can call if the need is urgent.
In today's fast-paced world, however, even a forty-eight-hour turn-
around might not be fast enough. By the time the material is
mailed, delivered by the post office, and routed through the mail
room to the prospect's desk, four or five days may have passed.
That's fine for routine inquiries. But if the prospect has indicated
serious interest, you may want to respond faster.
One technique is to send some preliminary information to the
prospect via fax, then follow up with a more complete literature
package in the mail. Lou Weiss, of Specialty Steel in Leonia, New
Jersey, is a pioneer in doing this. Lou had a standard two-sided sell
sheet printed in four colors. He created a black-and-white version
of this specifically to be sent via fax. Instead of photos, he used
simpler line art so the material would fax clearer. Now he has set
up his desktop computer system so that a personalized note from a
salesperson to the prospect can be added to the sell sheet fax.
I do the same thing in my seminar business. I have a standard
package for each of my seminars (e.g., one on direct mail, another
one on copywriting). Each contains a fact sheet on the seminar,
audiotape, arti-
 Page 387
cle reprints, and other materials. I mail the package first class the
day I receive an inquiry. But sometimes a prospect has to make a
quick decision about booking me as a speaker and wants to get
material quickly to show a committee. Each seminar fact sheet is
set in large, legible type, so the fact sheets can be faxed
immediately, with the other materials to follow in the mail.
If you sell a product or service needed on an urgent basis, or your
prospects are typically in a hurry, consider making a one- or two-
page sell sheet designed specifically as fax fulfillment literature.
There will be more and more demand from prospects and
customers in the future for this type of instant response to requests
for information. You should prepare for it now.

To Sum Up
As I said in the beginning, no single book can completely cover all
that can be said about business-to-business marketing, and this one
is no exception. Instead of being comprehensive in my coverage,
I've chosen to be selective. What you have here are the techniques I
practice every dayutterly pragmatic, nuts-and-bolts advice that I
have found works well and does not require excessive
expenditures.
These tips and techniques can increase your response rates, reduce
your marketing costs, and get you the leads and sales you want.
Please try the ones you feel are appropriate for your business, and
let me know the results.
 Page 389

Appendix Resources
Publications
Directories
Bacon's Publicity Checklist
332 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60604
(800) 621-0561
Media lists for mailing press releases.
Direct Mail List Rates & Data
1700 Higgins Road
Des Plaines, IL 60018
(800) 851-SRDS
Comprehensive directory of mailing lists.
Direct Marketing Market Place
National Register Publishing Company
121 Chanlon Road
New Providence, NJ 07974
(908) 464-6800
Lists direct marketing professionals, agencies, consultants, and
other suppliers.
The Directory of Mail Order Catalogs
Grey Publishing House
DMA Book Distribution Center
(301) 604-0187
Lists mail-order catalog houses to which you might be able to sell
your product.
The Encyclopedia of Associations
Gale Researc
Detroit, MI 48226
(313) 961-2242
Associations to whose membership lists you can target promotions.
The Interactive Multimedia Sourcebook
R. R. Bowker
121 Chanlon Road
New Providence, NJ 07974
(908) 464-6800
Sourcebook for marketers interested in Internet promotion.
The Information Catalog
Find/SVP
625 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10011
(800) 346-3005
Catalog of commercially available market research studies
covering a wide range of industries.
National Directory of Catalogs
Oxbridge Communications
150 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10114-0235
(800) 955-0231
Directory of mail-order catalog houses.
 Page 390
National Directory of Mailing Lists
Oxbridge Communications
150 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10114-0235
(800) 955-0231
Directory containing descriptions and contact information for
15,000 mailing lists.
O'Dwyers Directory of Public Relations Firms
J. R. O'Dwyer & Company, Inc.
271 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
(212) 679-2471
Directory of public relations firms.
Standard Directory of Advertising Agencies
R. R. Bowker
121 Chanlon Road
New Providence, NJ 07974
(908) 464-6800
Directory of advertising agencies.
Standard Rate and Data Service
1700 Higgins Road
Des Plaines, IL 60018-5605
(847) 375-5000
Comprehensive directory of publications that accept advertising.
Periodicals
Business Marketing Magazine
740 N. Rush Street
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 649-5260
Monthly magazine devoted exclusively to business-to-business
marketing.
Catalog Age
911 Hope Street
6 River Bend Center
Stamford, CT 06907
(203) 358-9900
Trade publication covering the catalog industry.
Direct
Cowless Business Media
6 River Bend Center
P.O. Box 4949
Stamford, CT 06907-0949
(203) 358-9900
One of several monthly magazines covering the direct marketing
industry. Free to those in the business. Mixes news, analysis, case
histories, and how-to.
Direct Marketing Magazine
Hoke Communications
224 Seventh Street
Garden City, NY 11530
(516) 746-6700
A monthly magazine covering the direct marketing industry. Many
how-to articles.
Direct Response
1815 W. 213 Stree
Suite 210
Torrance, CA 90501
(310) 212-5727
Monthly newsletter from Craig Huey, one of the best in the
business.
The Direct Response Specialist
Galen Stilson
P.O. Box 1075
Tarpon Springs, FL 34688
(813) 786-1411
Monthly newsletter on selling via direct-response advertising and
direct mail. Good how-to's on the basics of direct marketing.
DM News
Mill Hollow
19 W. 21st Street
New York, NY 10010
(212) 741-2095
Weekly newspaper covering the direct marketing industry. Free to
those in the business.
 Page 391
The Industrial Marketing Practitioner
1551 Valley Forge Road, Suite 246
Lansdale, PA 19446-9993
(215) 362-7200
Monthly newsletter on industrial marketing. Expertly done with
strong content.
Marketing with Technology News
370 Central Park West #210
New York, NY 10025-6517
(212) 222-1713
Newsletter on using fax and other technology to market products
and services.
Sure-Fire Business Success Catalog
Dr. Jeffrey Lant
JLA Publications
50 Follen Street, Suite 507
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 547-6372
Quarterly 16-page catalog containing more than 120
recommendations on small business marketing and management.
Call or write for free one year subscription.
Target Marketing Magazine
North American Publishing Co.
401 N. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19108
(215) 238-5300
Monthly magazine covering the direct marketing industry. Concise,
quick-reading format. Free to those in the industry.
Who's Mailing What? and The Direct
Marketing Archive
Dennison Hatch
P.O. Box 8180
Stamford, CT 06905
(203) 329-2666
Unique monthly newsletter analyzing winning direct mail packages
(mostly large-volume consumer mailings). Subscribers gain free
access to the Direct Marketing Archive, a large collection of
sample direct mail packages organized by category.

Letter Shops
Fala Direct Marketing
Mitch Hisiger
70 Marcus Drive
Melville, NY 11747
(516) 694-1919
Good full-service letter shop, especially for personalized mailings.
Send for free booklet, "Should I Personalize?"
Jerry Lake Mailing Service, Inc.
Jerry Lake
15 Bland Street
Emerson, NJ 07630
(201) 967-5644
Good full-service letter shop.
Reasonable prices, especially for smaller volume mailings.
Direct Mail Designers
Brown & Company
Steve Brown
25 West 39th Street, Suite 1101
New York, NY 10
Freelance graphic artist specializing in brochures and collateral;
also does excellent work in direct mail. Lots of business-to-
business experience.
Lucien Cohen Design
Lucien Cohen
1201 Broadway
New York, NY 10001
(212) 685-7455
Freelance graphic artist. Brochures and direct mail.
 Page 392
Stan Greenfield
39 W. 37th Street, 14th floor
New York, NY 10018
(212) 889-0762 or (201) 902-9773
First-rate freelance graphic artist specializing in direct mail.
Moshier Communications, Inc.
15 E. 12th Street, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10003
(212) 645-7554
Full-service graphic design studio and ad agency specializing in
direct marketing.
Elaine Tannenbaum Design
Elaine Tannenbaum
310 W. 106th Street, Apt. 16 D
New York, NY 10025
(212) 769-2096
Freelance graphic artist. Heavyweight in direct mail.

Printers
Folder Factory
116-A High St
Edinburg, VA 22824-0429
(703) 984-8852
Pocket folders for inquiry fulfillment packages and press kits.
Leesburg Printing Co.
Leesburg, FL 34748
(800) 828-3348
Specializes in newsletter printing.
Thomson Shore
Dexter, MI 48130-9701
(313) 426-3939
If you are thinking of creating a book as a promotional piece, call
this excellent printer specializing in short runs of books (20,000 or
fewer copies).
U.S. Press
P.O. Box 640
Valdosta, GA 31603
(800) 227-7377
Reasonable prices for quality four-color printing, especially catalog
sheets.
Radio Commercials
Chuck Hengel
Marketing Architects
14550 Excelsior Boulevard
Minneapolis, MN 55345
(612) 936-7500
Business Plans
Lisa Hines
Business Plan Concepts
134 Oklyn Terrace
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
(609) 530-0719
Premiums and Incentives
Nelson Marketing
210 Commerce Street
Oshkosh, WI 54901
(515) 236-7272
Perrygraf Slide Charts
19365 Business Center Drive
Northridge, CA 91324-3552
(800) 423-5329
Market Research
Frank Stetz
240 E. 82nd Street, 20t
(212) 439-1777
 Page 393
Taylor Research
6 Glenville Street
Greenwich, CT 06831
(203) 532-0202

Telemarketing
Frank Stetz
240 E. 82nd Street, 20th floor
New York, NY 10028
(212) 439-1777
Mariann Weinstei
115 N. 10th Street
New Hyde Park, NY 11040
(516) 437-0529

Fax Marketing
Maury S. Kauffman
The Kauffman Group
324 Windsor Drive
Cherry Hill, NJ 08002-2426
(609) 482-8288
Sarah E. Stambler
Marketing with Technology
370 Central Park West, 210
(212) 222-1713

Powerpoint Presentations
Ms. Bonnie Blake, Mary Cicitta
Design on Disk
400 River Road, 2nd floor
New Milford, NJ 07646
(516) 694-1919
Prime Time Staffing
1250 E. Ridgewood Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 612-0303
Web Page Design
Barry Fox
FoxTek
49 West Street
(516) 754-4304
Kent Martin
Network Creative
104 Mountain Avenue
Gilette, NJ 07930
(908) 903-9090
Mr. Jason Petefish
Silver Star Productions
21 Wilwood Road
Katonah, NY 10536
(914) 232-5363
Direct-Mail Graphic Design
David Bsales
David Bsales Design
16 W. Palisade Avenue, 206
Englewood, NJ 07631
(201) 567-1474
Mr. Harry Moshier
Moshier Communications
15 E. 12th Street, 2nd fl
(212) 645-7554
Ms. Elaine Tannenbaum
Elaine Tannenbaum Design
310 W. 106th Street, Apt. 16D
New York, NY 10025
(212) 769-2096
 Page 394

Mailing Lists
Ralph Drybrough
Direct Media
200 Pemberwick Road
Greenwich, CT 06830
(203) 532-1000
Mr. Ken Morris
W. Morris Direct Marketing
300 W. 55th Street, 19D
New York, NY 10019
(212) 757-7711
Mr. Steve Rob
253 W. 35th Street
New York, NY 10001
(800) 223-2194

Graphic Design, Brochures

Mr. Steve Brown
Brown & Company
138 Joralemon Street, 4R
Brooklyn, NY 11201
(718) 875-0674
Paul Spadafora, Pat Daniel, Ken Harper, John Stewart
Park Ridge Marketing
1776 On The Green
67 Park Place
Morristown, NJ 07960
(201) 984-2622

Public Relations Agencies

Mr. Mark Bruce
GHB Marketing Communications
1177 High Ridge Road
Stamford, CT 06905
(203) 321-1242
Mr. Don Levin
Levin Public Relations
30 Glenn Street
White Plains, NY 10603
(914) 993-0900
Photographers
Jonathan Clymer
Jonathan Clymer Photography
180-F Central Avenue
Englewood, NJ 07631
201) 568-1760
Phil Degginger
Phil Degginger Photography
9 Evans Farm Road
Morristown, NJ 07960
(201) 455-1733
Bruce Goldsmith
Bruce Goldsmith Photography
1 Clayton Court
Park Ridge, NJ 07656
(201) 391-4946
Mr. Edward Parker
RE Parker Photography
78 Washington Avenue
Dumont, NJ 07628
(201) 384-7052
Audiotaping
Mr. Mike Moe
Moe Company
133 Deerfield Road
Sayreville, NJ 08872
(908) 257-3760
 Page 395

Organizations
Business Marketing Association
150 N. Wacker Drive, Suite 1760
Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 409-4262
Direct Marketing Association
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-6700
(212) 768-7277
Trade Show Exhibitors Association
5501 Backlick Road, Suite 105
Springfield, VA 22151
(703) 941-3725

Conferences on Business-to-Business Direct Marketing

Business to Business Direct Marketing Conference
Box 4232
Stamford, CT 06907-0232
(203) 358-9900
Direct Marketing to Business
Target Conference Corporation
90 Grove Street
Ridgefield, CT 06877
0(203) 438-6602

Books
Business-to-Business Direct Marketing by Tracy Emerick and
Bernie Goldberg (North Hampton, New Hampshire: Direct
Marketing Publishers). Hardcover, $69.96. Solid information on
business-to-business direct marketing. Especially strong on
planning, strategy, databases, catalogs, and telemarketing.
The Business-to-Business Direct Marketing Handbook by Roy G.
Ljungren (New York: AMACOM, 1989). Hardcover, 456 pp., $65. A
thorough and comprehensive book on all aspects of business-to-
business direct marketing.
The Copywriter's Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing
Copy That Sells by Robert W. Bly (New York: Henry Holt & Co.,
1990), trade paperback, 351 pp., $12.95. How to write effective
copy for ads, direct mail, and other promotions.
Profiting from Industrial Sales Leads (Cleveland, Ohio: Penton
Publishing, 1991). Hardcover, 178 pp., $15.95. How to generate
and profit from industrial sales leads. Covers many different direct
marketing promotions, but focuses on space advertising.
 Page 397

INDEX

A
Act-now incentives, 160-61
Ads.
See Print advertising
Affinity groups, 109
Alexander Marketing, 36
Answer/ask (A/A) strategy, 347-49
Armstrong, R., 203
ASCII files, 317
Asimov, I., 312
Associations, 116
Audiocassette tapes, 138-39
effectiveness of, 313-16
as marketing tools, 295-96

B
Bacon's PR Service, 260
Bait pieces
defined, 130-31
sources, 140-42
writing, 137-38
Baker, S. S., 65
Baselines, 45
Benefit/advantage presentation scripts, 335-36
Benefit/statement opening scripts, 328-31
Benson, D., 162
Bishop, B., 347
Blake, G., 344
Bloom, B., 263
Booklet offers, free
charging for, 145-46
common objections against, 142-45
creating successful, 132-36
importance of, 131-32
lead-generating direct mail and, 71
reasons for effectiveness, 130-31
sources, 140-42
Books, 136
Bounce backs, 381
Brochures
creating effective, 226-28
designing, to increase responses, 222-23, 224-26
future of, and World Wide Web, 215
next-step theory of, 216-17
pricing information in, 221-22
product, 218-20, 383-84
service, 220-21
tips and techniques, 84-85
video, 319-21
Brock, L., 16
Brown, M., 299-300
Browsing.
See Surfing
Bulk rate mail, 204
Business buyers
motives, 22-25
sophistication, 10-12
willingness to buy, 7-10
willingness to read copy, 12-15
Business buying
influences, 17-21
as multistep process, 15-17
Business products, 21-22
Business reply mail, 39-42
Business/Industrial Marketing and Communications: Key to More
Productive Selling (McNutt), 16-17
Business-to-business catalogs, 231-32
adding value to, 236-37
designing, 237
ease of ordering in, 233-35
 Page 398
front covers, 232-33
guarantees and, 236
humanizing, 235-36
industrial, 232
mail-order, 231-32
writing effective copy for, 237-46
Business-to-business databases, 49-50
Business-to-business lead-generating mailings
estimating responses to, 45-46
hard offers in, 150-55
improving results in, 207
measuring sales results of, 47-49
motivating sequence, 186-91
Business-to-business mail-order direct mailings
best layout for sales letters, 205-6
biggest mistakes, 198-99
break-even objectives, 49
estimating responses to, 46-47
factors affecting response, 196-98
first class or bulk rate, 204
 letter, package, or self-mailer for, 199-201
measuring sales results of, 48
motivating sequence, 186, 191-96
personalization in, 201-2
teasers, 202-3
use of gimmicks, 207-8
variations on hard and soft orders for, 148-50
writing secrets, 204-5
Business-to-business marketing
versus consumer marketing, 7-25
defined, 4
versus direct marketing, 26-35
Buying, defined, 18

C
Call-backs, 348-50
Catalogs
on computer disks, 316-19
tips and techniques, 85-87
Cause and effect statements, 67-68
CD-ROMS, 139, 316-19
Chapin, C., 224
Choices, in direct selling, 344-45
Cold calls.
See also Presentation scripts; Scripts, telemarketing;
Telemarketing
defined, 327
tips for, 334
use of scripts for, 327-28
Collins, T., 17
Column articles, tips and techniques, 92-94
Commissions, media, 35-36
Communication Workshop, 135
Communications inventory form, 97
Compartmentalization, 20
Computer disks, 316-19
Conditional offers, 149
Considered purchases, defined, 18
Consultants, 28
Consultative selling, 341-42
Consumer buyers.
See also Business buyers sophistication, 10-12
willingness to buy, 7-10
Consumer databases, 49-50
Consumer marketing
break-even objectives, 49
versus business-to-business marketing, 7-25
defined, 4
Contact information, in websites, 310
Copy
catalog, 237-46
factors determining length, 13-14
for websites, 303
Cover letters, 370-80
Creative fees, 36-39
Credentials, 117-18
Cross-promotion, in websites, 308-10

D
Database marketing, defined, 5
Databases, business-to-business versus consumer, 49-50
Deadlines, 160-61
Decline percentage, 31
Deferred offers, 126-27
Degree of confidence, 31
Demonstrations, 163-65
Dialogue/back-and-forth presentation scripts, 340-43
Direct mail.
See also Business-to-business mail-order direct mailings
for attendance at trade shows, 363-68
defined, 4-5
estimating responses, 44-47
 Page 399
Direct Mail Encyclopedia (Edith Roman Associates), 116
Direct mail packages
target marketing and, 101-3
tips and techniques, 79-81
Direct marketers, 55-57
Direct marketing
versus business-to-business marketing, 26-35
defined, 5
Direct marketing consultants, 28
Direct presentation scripts, 343-46
Direct response marketing communication
benefits, 57-63
converting ordinary marketing communications to, 63-76
mind-set for, 53-57
Displays, trade show, 360-61
Distribution channels, 108-9
Donath, B., 262-63
Doubling day, 44
Dunn, R., 266, 271, 272
E
Eco, U., 313
Eder, P., 299-300
Edison, T. A., 311
Edmonston, J., 299
Egley, J., 65
Electronic media, 138-40
Encyclopedia of Associations (Gale Research), 116
Enrollment pages, 305
Envelopes, for inquiry fulfillment, 370
Evaluations, 166-67
Evans, C. R., 319, 320, 321
Expositions, defined, 359
E-zines, 310

F
Fairs, 359
FAQs.
See Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Fax broadcasting, 323-26
Fax marketing, 321-23, 325-326
Fax-on-Demand (FOD) systems, 324-25
Feature articles
placing, 267
planted, 261
resource boxes for, 272-74
selecting topics for, 261-264
writing, 264-67
writing queries for, 268-72
Features/benefits table, 68
FINDEX (Cambridge Information Group), 115-16
First-class mail, 204 versus third-class mail, 40-42
Floppy disks, 139.
See also Computer disks
Folders, for inquiry fulfillment, 385
Frequently asked questions (FAQs), 307-8
Friedberg, J., 16
Fuentes, C., 287

G
General advertising, defined, 5
General marketers.
 See Generalists
Generalists, 53-55
Gosden, F., Jr., 364
Gossage, H., 310
Graphics, in websites, 309-10
Green sheet method, 292-93
Guarantees, hard offers and, 159-60

H
Halberg, G., 40
Hard offers, 124-25
in business-to-business lead generation, 150-55
offering guarantees and, 159-60
variations of, for mail order, 148-50
Harris, J., 344
Hauptman, D., 204
Headlines, 63-64
for direct marketing communications, 63-64
in postcard decks, 215-16
High-tech advertising, defined, 5
Hill, R., 222
Home pages, 304
Hopkins, C., 173, 174
Hubbard, L. R., 298
Humphries, A. C., 357
Hypertext links, 298
external, 304-5
internal, 304

I
Image advertising, defined, 5
Incentives, 70-72
 Page 400
Industrial business-to-business mail order catalogs, 232
Industrial marketing, defined, 6
Information Catalog, 116
Informational premiums.
See Booklet offers, free
Inlander, C., 181
Inquiry fulfillment kits, 89-90
cover letters, 370-80
folders, 385
inserts, 384-85
outer envelopes, 370
product brochures, 383-84
reply forms, 380-83
response time for, 386-87
Inserts, for inquiry fulfillment, 383-84
Internet, 297, 299
Internet Service Providers (ISPS), 298-99
Isaacs, S., 20

J
Junk mail, 6
Jutkins, R., 19

K
Kauffman, M., 321
Kikoler, T., 205
Klinghoffer, S., 277, 285
Kobs, J., 166
Krauthammer, C., 312, 313

L
Lake, J., 42
Landen, H., 319, 321
Lane, J., 4
LANFAX, 326
Lant, J., 33, 65, 212, 273, 299
Lead-generating mailings, business-to-business.
See Business-to-business lead-generating mailings
Lead-generating offers, 161-63
Libey, D., 47
Links.
 See Hypertext links
List duplication, 34-35
Listening, effective, 337-38
Luedtke, R., 215

M
McLean, E., 30, 31
McNutt, G. C., 16-17
Magazines, company, 95-96
Magnetic media, 139-40
Mail order, defined, 6
Mailing list brokers, 27
Mailing list consultants, 28
Mailing lists, 116
business-to-business marketing versus direct marketing, 26-28
Mail-order direct mailings, business-to-business.
See Business-to-business mail-order direct mailings
Mail-order offers, 161-63
Manuals, 136
Manufacturer copy, 204
Marketers
 direct, 55-57
general, 53-55
Marketing, defined, 6.
See also Business-to-business marketing; Consumer marketing;
Database marketing; Direct marketing; Fax marketing; Industrial
marketing; Pull marketing; Push marketing; Target marketing
Martin, D., 66
Matheo, R., 203
Media Maps, 260
Merge/purge, 34-35
Microsoft Internet Explore software, 298
Mind-set, defined, 53
Modified consultative selling, 342
Morris, K., 50, 211, 257
Motivating sequence
formula, 186
lead-generating letter, 186-91
mail-order letter, 191-96

N
Navigating.
See Surfing
Negative offers, 125-26
Netscape software, 298
New Maximarketing, The (Rapp and Collins), 17
Newsletters.
See Promotional newsletters
Newsletters, company, 95-96
Next-Step Theory, 216-17
Norcutt, W., 214
 Page 401

O
Offers
conditional, 149
deadlines and, 160-61
deferred, 126-27
defined, 122-23
effectiveness of, in different media, 156-57
effects of word changes, 157-58
guarantees and, 159-60
hard, 124-25, 147-48, 148-50
lead-generating, 161-63
negative, 125-26
predicting success of, 154-55
primary, 127-28
secondary, 127-30
soft, 123-24, 130, 148-50
using combinations of, 127-30
Ogilvy, D., 53
On-line indexes, 304
P
Pallace, R., 172
Papers, tips and techniques, 94-95
Planted feature stories.
See Feature articles
Postcard decks, 211
advantages, 209-10
defined, 209
designing, 211-13
disadvantages, 210-11
elements of successful, 214-15
importance of headlines, 215-16
price of products and, 213-14
tips and techniques, 81-83
Poynter, D., 312-13
Preference sell, 344
Premiums, 161-63
Presentation scripts
benefit/advantage, 335-36
defined, 335
 dialogue/back-and-forth, 340-43
direct, 343-46
survey/question, 336-40
Presentations
audiocassette tapes in, 295-96
finding opportunities for, 289-90
marketing opportunities in, 290-95
tips and techniques, 94-95
Press releases
creating news with, 250-51
finding business magazines for, 260
ineffectiveness of, 247-48
preparing for distribution, 259-60
themes for, 249-50
tips and techniques, 91-92
writing for readers and editors, 248-49
writing ''free booklet,'' 251-57
Print advertising
being direct in, 173-74
coupons in, 177-78
as direct response ads, 179-80
 free booklet offers in, 175-77
headlines, 172
multipart headlines in, 178-79
for products prospects need and want, 181-82
provocative questions in, 172-73
pulling-power tips, 182-85
tips and techniques, 83-84
use time-related tie-ins, 175
useful information in, 174-75
Product brochures, 218-19, 383-84
Professional speaking.
See Presentations
Promotional newsletters
assembling, 281-82
charging fees for, 280-81
cost factors, 285-86
designing, 279-80
promoting, 278-79
size and frequency for, 276
story ideas for, 282-85
subscriber lists for, 276-78
Prospect need/qualification opening script, 331-33
Public shows, 359
Pull marketing, 108
Push marketing, 108

Q
Queries, 268-72

R
Ramos, S., 340
Rapp, S., 17
Reader's self-interest, 64-66
Recommend, defined, 18
Reddy, D., 173
 Page 402
Reply forms, for inquiry fulfillment, 380-83
Reply mail, 39-42
Resource boxes, 272-74
Response mechanisms, 74-75
Response rates, for mailings, 44-47
Rosenblum, S., 204, 337
Russo, J., 271

S
Sales letters
best layout for, 205-6
tips and techniques, 77-79
Samplings, 165-66
Schwartz, E., 181
Screening, 42-43
Scripts, telemarketing.
See also Cold calls; Telemarketing
cold calls and, 327-28
delivering, 333
openings
 benefit/statement, 328-31
prospect need/qualification, 331-33
presentation
benefit/advantage, 335-36
defined, 335
dialogue/back-and-forth, 340-43
direct, 343-46
survey/question, 336-40
tips for, 334
Secretaries
as allies, 350
Answer/Ask strategy for, 347-49
getting past, 346-48
screening by, 42-43
Self-mailers, 200-1
tips and techniques, 81-82
Selling, stages of, 16
Seminars, 163-65
tips and techniques, 94-95
Servers, 297
Service brochures, 220-21
Service bureaus, for fax marketing/broadcasting, 325-26
Sieghardt, R. L., 382
Smith, T. C., 217-18
Soft offers, 123-24
variations of, for mail order, 148-50
Space commissions, 35-36
Special reports, 135
as bait pieces, 140-42
Specify, defined, 18
Speeches, tips and techniques, 94-95
Sperling, S., 321
Standard Rate and Data Service, 211
Standard Rate and Data Service (Macmillan Publishing), 116
Statistical validity, 31
Sugarman, J., 63
Surfing, 297-98
Survey/question presentation scripts, 338-42

T
Target marketing
benefits of, 100
 defined, 99-100
direct mail packages and, 101-3
growth in, 100
methods, 104-14
saving money with, 103
Targeting
audiences, 110-14
decisions, 114-19
Teasers, 202-3
Technical Information Kit (TIK), 291
Techniques, defined, 53
Telemarketing.
See also Cold calling; Scripts, telemarketing
best times for, 346
getting past secretaries, 346-48
Testing
classic versus business-to-business, 29-31
need for, 155-61
Third-class mail, versus first-class mail, 40-42
3-D mailings, 207-8
TIK.
 See Technical Information Kit (TIK)
Toner, M., 21
Trade shows, 116
defined, 359-60
displays, 360-61
managing, 361-63
selecting, 354
selecting products for, 354-56
successful selling, 356-59