Should direct marketers worry about it?

Direct response copywriters have a responsibility to do one thing and one thing only: to maximize return on investment (ROI) from every promotion they write. Direct response isn’t a branding tool. People barely remember million-dollar TV campaigns. They forget 99.99 percent of your mail the minute they toss it.

Whenever copywriters subordinate ROI to worrying about the impact their work has on the brand — or anything else — they compromise the ability of a promotion to maximize response.

When I sit down to write a letter, I think of only one thing: “What true, ethical and legal thing can I say that will get my prospect to buy this product?” Not, “How can I create a good image?” or “How does this build the brand?” I have been doing it this way for 25 years with pretty good results. So, what branding guidelines should direct mail copywriters follow and which should they ignore?

Here are three quick recommendations you ignore at your peril:

1. Whenever your product has a strong, well-recognized, respected brand, leverage that in your direct mail. For instance, if you are selling subscriptions to a stock market newsletter from The Motley Fool, feature the famous fool icon.

2. Don’t force your direct marketing copywriter or agency to use specific branding tag lines, wording or images in their copy and design. Do not make it a requirement or even a suggestion to follow the branding guidelines.

Reason: The minute your creative team begins worrying about anything other than ROI, you compromise the integrity of your DM package and its ability to achieve your primary mission of generating maximum response.

3. Be aware that many branding guidelines, especially bright corporate colors, large logos and slick graphics, can actually depress response to direct mail. You see, direct mail often works best when it doesn’t look like marketing communications or advertising and instead more closely resembles a real, personal letter. Adding all the branding stuff can quickly eliminate that edge.

Robert W. Bly is a freelance direct response copywriter and the author of more than 50 books including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Direct Marketing (Alpha). His e-mail address is rwbly@bly.com and his Web site address is bly.com.