MAKING TEASERS WORK
By George Duncan
The effectiveness of direct-mail teasers depends on how well they match the characteristics of your magazine and its audience. This article can help you select the best offer for your situation.You've probably been told many times that there are two answers toevery question about direct mail. One is, "It depends," and theother is, "Test it."One of the questions that I'm frequently asked is, "Do envelopeteasers work?" And, my answer is, "The right ones do." What arethe right teasers? Actually, there are three basic types ofteasers, and the one that may work best for you depends on rel-evant circumstances. The type of teaser you should consider de-pends on your marketing situation, your list quality, and yourposition regarding the quantity/quality ratio. The three types of teasers are offer, benefit, and issue.THE OFFER TEASER...This teaser offers a free issue, a complimentary copy, a discountprice, a sweepstakes, or a gift. For example: Subscribe now andsave 50 percent off the newsstand price. Send for your free exam-ination issue of Widget World today! Inside: special introductory savings! Get this walkaround radio FREE with the certificate enclosed! You may have already won $5 million!Offer teasers are effectively used by those publications that are in highly competitive markets and have a similar editorial focus.They share a definable universe, and substantial business flows from one to the other from year to year.Offer teasers can also be effective when you are using lists that may have poorly defined target markets, because the teasers pro-vide the widest possible appeal--something free. The quality of subscriber these teasers attract, however, is likely to be lowerthan with other appeals. These subscribers may not renew ifthey're responding more to your deal than to your publication's editorial content. Gross response may be relatively high, but pay-up and renewal rates will probably be poor. This is the essence of the quantity/quality ratio. In most cases,when the quantity is up, the quality of the respondents is downand vice versa. If you want to keep pumping in expensive, new subscribers--and some publishers do--you should expect to have ahigh percentage of them fall off at renewal time.Incidentally, if you use one of these offers in your marketing strategy, you don't necessarily have to broadcast it on the en-velope. You may be better off using a benefit or issue teaser onthe outer envelope to better qualify those who actually open yourmail and then attempt to draw a higher response among thoseprospects with a liberal or soft offer inside.THE BENEFIT TEASER...As the name implies, a benefit teaser promises a benefit for thereader--not a feature, attribute, or characteristic of the publication. One quick guide I suggest is to refer to the old nurseryrhyme and determine how your magazine or newsletter will make the reader healthy, wealthy, or wise. To make the feature/benefitproblem easier, remember that features have to do with things;benefits have to do with people.Examples of benefit teasers include: See inside and increase yourpersonal productivity five-fold! Open your child's mind to the world and its wonders! Or, Now you'll KNOW what's happening in the marketplace! The benefit teaser has a narrower appeal than the offer teaser. Few benefits are truly universal. In the examples I've listed, for instance, some prospects may not be particularly concernedwith personal productivity. They may believe that their child'smind is fine as it is or that they already know what's happeningin the marketplace. There is some risk, but relative to the offer teaser, the benefit teaser attracts a person who is more intune with your editorial mission. Consequently, your pay-up rateis better, as well as your renewal rate. Just be sure not to promise something that your magazine can't deliver. There is noreason not to hedge your bet, however, and add an offer-related phrase to your benefit teaser: Find out FREE with the certificateenclosed! You need to know your market very well if you are going to use a benefit teaser; so, do your homework. Find out what your readerscare about. Determine why they're reading your publication. Readthe letters to the editor, especially the ones that don't get pub-lished. Call subscribers and chat; talk to the editors. This kindof research also will prepare you for the issue teaser, which is similar to the benefit teaser but creates more impact.THE ISSUE TEASER...Consider, for example, a promotion for a nursing publication aimed specifically at medical-surgical nurses. The issue teaser,a subject of concern to the reader, might read, Guess how med-surgnurses rated their jobs recently? For a children's magazine, the teaser might read, Tomorrow's successes begin today. Will your child be among them? Bill Jayme's oft-quoted classic for Psychology Today was, Do you close the bathroom door when no one elseis home? These are the grabbers. They are finely focused and, therefore, the riskiest of the three types of teasers, but they really getprospects involved, and involvement is the ultimate goal of directmail.Another issue teaser that's equally effective in getting prospects involved is the offer of an editorially related premium such as aspecial report about a significant issue or topic. For example, a magazine featuring demographics could offer a series of reprintsabout consumer trends. Newsletters and business/professional publications can make partic-ularly effective use of this strategy, offering reprints of articlesor ancillary studies as premiums either with a trial order or withpayment. In reprint offers, the title is important. It gives focusto what otherwise might be little more than a "Best of..." premium. As a sales aid for your magazine, a "best of" premium adds nothingto the value of your offer. The more closely related the premium is to your publication's editorial content, the better it will per-form in terms of both quantity and quality of subscribers.The issue teaser probably produces the highest quality reader, even if the gross response does suffer somewhat. The issue teaserrequires thorough research and good list work. You must be sure that your offer is worth while and that you're talking to the right prospects. Blend those two elements with a little imagination, andyou'll have a winner in the issue teaser.Browser Fixed
