John Newtson Rambles

Who the heck is Dick Benson and why should you study the crap out of him?

Hey, great question.

Dick Benson is one of those giants of direct marketing most online marketers have never heard of. He’s the guy who’d seen it all, done it all in direct mail. With decades of experience advising the biggest direct mailers in the industry his writings are a gold-mine of marketing insight.

And his Rules of Thumb are direct marketing ‘must-knows’.

Here they are for your edification…

1. A 2-time buyer is twice as likely to buy again as 1-time buyer.
2. The same product sold at different price-points will give you the same NET INCOME. (JOHN: There are big implications of this one that I’ll have to post about in-depth)
3. Sweepstakes will improve results by 50% or more.
4. A credit or bill-me offer will improve results by 50% or more.
5. Tokens or stickers always improve results. (JOHN: Not useful online, but their are other involvement devices available online)
6. Memberships renew better than subscriptions by 10% or more. (JOHN: Keep that in mind when debating how to position your continuities).
7. “Department Store” pricing always pays except for membership offers. (JOHN: He means non-rounded prices, so $9.95 instead of $10)
8. You can’t sell two things at the same time
9. Self-mailers almost never work (JOHN: Times change. Self-mailers proved out later. More important her is to recognize that FORMATS matter — online and off. )
10. The more believable a special offer is the more likely it’s success (JOHN: You’re prospects aren’t stupid, strong reasons-why for deadline offers work better than ‘just because’ reasons why.)
11. Adding installment payments for items over $15 will increase results by 15% (JOHN: Payment plans work. Period.)
12. Dollar for dollar; premiums are better than discounts.
13. Adding elements to a mailing package, even though they add cost, are more likely to pay out than ‘cheapening’ the package.
14. For magazines, a ’soft offer’ works better than hard-offers. (JOHN: If you haven’t tested soft-offers, or $1 trial offers you’re probably missing out on a huge-increase in sales. Try it.)
15. A yes-no options increases orders.
16. “FREE” is a magic word. (JOHN: It gets overused these days but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have power when applied well.)
17. 2-premiums are usually better than on.
18. Long copy is better than short copy. (JOHN: Except some cases, read this post on short vs. long copy to know the difference).
    
19. Personalized letters work better to house lists. (JOHN: Online we have opportunities to easily collect a great amount of info about our customers and use it to strengthen the relationship and increase response)
20. Brochures and letters should stand alone and each should contain all the information. (JOHN: This can be applied to pages on your website. Especially considering you never know where a prospect is going to go when surfing.)
21. Direct mail should be scrupulously honest. (JOHN: I want to tack this the heads of a lot of marketers I’ve met. Applies to email, sales-letters and all the rest of marketing.)
22. Subscriptions sold at half-price for at least 8-months will convert at renewal time just as strongly as subscriptions sold for a full year at full price. (JOHN: I’m surprised at how many marketers aren’t tracking renewal and retention rates to their continuity programs based on the offer customers came in on. Because they DO tend to behave differently.)
23. Lists are the most important ingredient to the success of a promotional mailing.
24. The offer is the second most important ingredient to the success of a promotion.
25. Letters should look and feel like letters. (JOHN: Communication formats should not pretend to be something they’re not. )
26. An exclusive reduced price to a house list will more than pay for itself. (JOHN: You are adding revenue by testing special offers to your existing customers, right?)
27. To predict the final results from a promotion, you can assume you will always receive as many more orders as you’ve received in the past week. This projection generally works starting the second week in a campaign.
28. A follow-up mailing dropped two weeks after the first mailing will pull 50% of the original response.
29. An incentive to pay cash when you offer both cash and credit options reduces response (JOHN: The principle still holds true even though we’re not taking cash online. When you incentivize an ordering option that takes longer to execute more people will want the incentive but never get around to the longer option. Direct response marketing is an impulse medium, you want customers to order as quickly as possible. That’s why ‘fast-response bonuses’ are so powerful.)
30. Test-mailing packages are best when they come from independent creative sources. (JOHN: Still true online, there are two avenues of testing, incremental, small changes to format elements and creative testing. You’ll get bigger response increases from completely NEW creative elements than from simple tweaking of the messaging. )
31. Offers of subscriptions using two terms (I.e. 8 months or 16 months) will pull more money … but 10% fewer orders.

And in Benson’s words, “Nothing works all the time, but ignore any of these rules at your own peril.”

Amen brother Benson!

There are few truly ‘new’ things in marketing. Almost everything is a variation of something that’s come before so the better you understand the principles derived from others experience the better you’ll be at making marketing decisions today.

BTW — You can (and really should) pick up Dick Benson’s book, published by one his former clients, Major Mailer Boardroom by clicking here (not an aff link): Dick Benson’s Secrets of Successful Direct Mail.

Rock on,

John