Sometimes intuition serves us well. When it warns us to step away from a snake making a rattling sound, to keep our distance from the edge of a cliff, or not to eat something that smells rotten, I have to concede its value.

But experiencing too many right intuitive hunches in a row has its down side. It can lead us to believe that our first reactions are always right. In marketing, where people don’t always act the way you might expect, too much reliance on intuition can lead you to sabotage your own results.

The intuition wars

Veterans of what I like to call “intuition wars” know what I mean. For soldiers yet to visit that particular front, here’s an example: When a respected private college asked my agency to recruit MBA students, an intuition war erupted the moment we presented them with a classic direct mail package. According to the college representatives’ collective intuition, no one would read a four-page sales letter; the copy style was too … too … “marketing-y”; and, given the cost and value of an MBA, a $25 gift incentive would not lure, but insult, intelligent candidates.

Hopefully, I needn’t defend to you the value of long copy, compelling language and a strong incentive offer. But I had to defend it to them. At that moment, more than a hundred years of proven direct response tactics went up against the intuition of an entire college faculty, including marketing and advertising professors. Who were we to argue with all of those PhDs?

But argue we did. We convinced the client to let the four-page letter stand — “marketing-y” style and all — and to test the gift offer by sending it to half of the mailing list. In the end, the version with the gift offer produced eight times as many applicants as the version without. Moreover, this was the college’s most successful mailing ever. To its credit, college administration continued mailing the winning version (albeit grudgingly). In return for a modest investment in printing and postage — and for suspending intuition long enough to count results — the college enrolled millions of dollars’ worth of tuition-paying students.

Five tips for unleashing your marketing

Had the college’s collective intuition prevailed, the result would have been an unwittingly sabotaged campaign. This suggests some important lessons for all of us:

1. Be cautious of hunches. I realize that this advice flies in the face of what some apostles of New Age thinking preach. But the fact is, marketers who rely on their gut alone take an unwise risk. Consider the professor from a noted university who “knew” that there was no demand for an overnight delivery service, or the business machines leader who “knew” there was no value in personal computers. If you believe that your intuition is always right, it’s more likely you have simply failed to note the misfires.

2. Beware your comfort zone. Classic direct mail techniques are often the antithesis of popular advertising, and can make newcomers uncomfortable. But it’s important to remember that established direct mail practices became established by proving their worth, not by retreating to comfort zones. So rather than ask, “Is the headline cheesy?” — whatever “cheesy” means — ask, “Is this the kind of headline that experience shows tends to work?” If the answer is yes, tell your comfort zone that you’ll be staying someplace else for a while.

3. Trust what works for other direct marketers. When I was new to this business, I correctly surmised that what direct marketers repeatedly mail must have been working. I imitated what I saw — upbeat copy, short paragraphs, engaging leads, a killer PS, double-indented paragraphs, underlining, and strong calls to action — and response grew. Today, libraries and bookstores abound with publications revealing what works in direct mail. Study and imitate the winners.

4. Conduct your own tests. Proven techniques notwithstanding, every case is unique. What’s the best way to present your product? What incentive will motivate the most response? Which headline and layout work best? These are not questions of opinion, but of discovery. Embrace classic direct mail strategies, but test and measure the particulars.

5. Trust results. I still cringe when I recall a client for whom we tested three direct mail approaches. When his favorite lost, he declared the test invalid. “I know my customers,” he said. “They like what I like.” On the contrary, he didn’t, and they didn’t. Don’t decide what works. Let your customers show you.

Intuitive hunches are part of being human. While they often serve to keep us safe in a natural environment, they can sabotage us in the not-so-natural marketplace. You are wise to heed your intuition when it advises against petting a rabid coyote. But when it tells you that proven direct mail methods are unprofessional and will not work, I suggest politely overruling it.

Steve Cuno heads the RESPONSE Agency in Salt Lake City. He is the author of the book Prove It Before You Promote It: How to Take the Guesswork Out of Marketing and is a popular convention speaker for the Direct Marketing Association, the American Marketing Association, the James Randi Educational Foundation and others. He can be reached at Steve@ResponseAgency.com.