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How the Direct-Response Mix Works
Too often, direct response is understood to mean direct mail. But direct response refers to all media available to urge the reader, viewer, or listener to take action. And while direct mail often produces the most affordable and reliable donors and buyers, we must not forget the synergetic impact of multimedia advertising.
So we urge clients to spread their advertising dollars over various media. (Plan on two telephone campaigns a year just to let your donors hear how you will produce quick net dollars for them.) Stay on the phone during a time-sensitive campaign, long after the mail must be abandoned...jolt those expired members and subscribers by letting them know there’s a real person behind your product.
Create credibility and high identity with television. Consider a TV special, one-half hour in length. Add to it 10, 15, 30 and 60 second spots. The options and combinations are endless.
Results Make Our Business
Our job is to effectively and efficiently produce memberships, new orders, and fundraising dollars for our clients. Simultaneously, we will approach expired donors, old memberships, and expired subscribers with fresh new mail, telemarketing and TV formats, or a combination of all three.
Through careful and controlled testing, we make the very best use of your marketing budget. Our constant goal is to provide you with the most amount of “actionable” information, for the least expenditure.
Each ad, each media buy, each list order, and each and every letter and response technique is scrutinized with the bottom line in mind. This time-consuming, pencil-pushing analysis is a MUST. The best creative idea in the world will be a flop if it doesn’t fit perfectly into your marketing budget. Once analyzed, your results are then projected into a business plan that makes good sense for your organization. There’s no way to get around it; tests, results, and analyses are the keystones to your success...and ours.
At MDG our professional staff will help you grow and prosper through tested, scientific advertising methods.
Winning Formats
Good direct mail is simple. The outside envelope, letter and reply form, all work together as a package to prod the receiver into action. The secret is to get your buyer’s attention quickly — you’ve only got about 10 seconds — and then motivate him or her to do donate, purchase, subscribe or become a member.
Next Step...
How do you get your audiences’ attention in a tasteful, but motivational manner? In other words, how do you manage to be eye-catching without being glaring, motivational without being heavy-handed, and simple without being naive? Good marketing does all of this. . . plus produces results.
Sweepstakes
Don’t let them scare you! Sweepstakes and raffle-type packages have worked for such diverse groups as the Reader’s Digest and the Metropolitan Opera Society. If your first reaction is that sweeps and raffles are too commercial, then you need an open-mind and to see some of our packages. Sweeps often provide the breakthrough needed for a prospect program in the doldrums, or a “hard-to-sell” subscription or membership to a single-issue-group.
Giveaways
“Free” is the best word in marketing. Consider adding new services to your list of benefits for added appeal. If that’s not practical, try a premium. Study your audience thoroughly. Get to really know your buyer/donors. Then, without a budget limit in mind, think of what would add to a person’s image of himself as a donor or buyer. Good research will usually provide a way to exchange the item you have selected at an affordable price. Don’t just throw something at your prospect for the sake of giving something away. Premiums must have a perceived value and make good, common sense for each appeal.
Community Clubs and High-Dollar Giving Societies
Take advantage of the joining syndrome and give that $50, $100, $1,000 or even $10,000 donor a special place in your family of supporters. This very special person must be recognized with more than a ream of newsletters of informational material. They need to be telephoned and given special selective treatment. Above all, this person should be singled out for their support in a meaningful way.
Our designs for these Giving Societies are a MDG specialty. Considerable time and energy have gone into test phases and completed campaigns. We believe we are unique in offering our clients this valuable service. These societies are the basic building blocks of your next Capital Campaign.
Capital Campaigns
Our approach to Capital Campaigns involves our entire firm. Each Campaign is supervised by a principal of the firm, and day-to-day direction is provided by an experienced Campaign Director. MDG Capital Campaign Directors are experienced professionals whose responsibilities include: designing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated capital campaign plan that utilizes every asset of our firm; Direct Mail, Prospect Research, Grant Writing, and Event Management. We emphasize direct mail as the introduction of a campaign and the cultivation material needed to bring distribution to a Capital Campaign.
Success is in the Details...
Copy
Personal, logical, and well-organized the copy must demonstrate you “know” the audience, through research and experience. Each appeal must include a compelling offer with a negative consequence if the consumer declines.
Outside Envelope Design
The most overlooked elements in reader motivation is the outside envelope that says right up front who you are. It can be the difference between your success or your failure. Each design has its own time and place, but consider using certified mail, special labels, handwritten addresses, closed-face envelopes, first class with multiple stamps. . . all are proven attention-getting devices.
Television
MDG has written, edited and produced everything from 60-second spots, to full-blown single-issue specials. Infomercials can demonstrate a company’s strong points to its audience and help a sales consultant close a deal. Our success in this area lies in our construction of a superior segmented format, with the right combination of script and celebrities, that fit the audience. We often opt for time that is so inexpensive that a typical time-buying agency would laugh. Our bottom-line-strategy on time buying has forced us to become expert time-buyers for special and unique markets.
Space Advertising: A Diverse Medium
Bind-in cards/pages, newspaper inserts, warranty cards, coupons, as well as the traditional magazine and newspaper ads all fall in the broad and diverse medium of space advertising. At MDG, our attitude about space advertising is simple and direct. Space ads, properly coded and tracked, can be analyzed and tied to your bottom-line results. We are able to negotiate and buy space with such good results because of our well-established relationship with the Nation’s top magazines and newspapers. Space ads, whether for fundraising, testing offers, testing premiums, or selling subscriptions or memberships, are more than just spreading colorful ink over a couple of columns. We believe your offer or appeal is paramount. We will help you refine your offer into an action-oriented headline. Often this refinement and definition process will literally write the ad itself. Yet, we find this process is often neglected, resulting in thousands of dollars wasted. We then marry your offer/headline with a first-class graphic design that clearly communicates your message to your intended audience. Space advertising, like telemarketing, is a direct-response support system. The same words of caution apply: don’t isolate your space-ad campaign from the rest of your program.