Telling Them What They Want to Hear


The Weekly Standard is a conservative weekly political journal. The magazine conducts extensive direct-mail campaigns using rented lists, most of which are political fund-raising and subscription lists. For help in increasing its subscriber base, it turned to Brian Brilliant at BMD in Alexandria, Virginia.

The source of a list often demonstrates the mindset of the people on that list. To leverage the limited data on potential customers, BMD’s strategy was to insert a variable headline at the top of the letter that would relate in a marketing sense to the list from which the recipient came. For example, if John Doe’s name came from a military list, then he would get a headline such as: “John Doe, we have some shocking news about American’s decaying military.” Seven headlines were created to match up with the rented lists. As you might expect, there were some lists that didn’t fit any specific profile. They received a generic headline. The headlines that were not selected for each prospect were then used in the first paragraph as part of a variable message describing the variety of subject matter that readers might find in the publication.

How well would such an approach work? To find out, Brian created a control group for each list. The control group did not get a customized headline, but instead got a generic headline about the magazine. Comparing the controls to the customized headlines, the custom letters had, on average, a 24.8 percent better response rate and a 62.3 percent better pay-up rate. The agency attributed most of the boost in initial response rate to the “openability” of the package because of the personalized message. And it attributed the lift in pay-up rate to the fact that subscribers were told up front that the magazine contained content that would interest them. The method worked.




The Customer Loyalty Solution. What Works (and What Doesn't in Customer Loyalty Programs)
The Customer Loyalty Solution : What Works (and What Doesnt) in Customer Loyalty Programs
ISBN: 0071363661
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 226

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