Last week I had an interesting conversation with the director of a company who told me that he had been receiving Hamilton House promotional leaflets for some time, but still had no idea what we actually did. 

Naturally I invited him to share a drink with me at the Toppled Bollard, Corby ’s famed watering hole of the advertising élite. As we settled down over a masterful bottle of Bordeaux à la Voiture Flambée I explained our role in the world of direct mail. 

“Hamilton House,” I told him, “has set itself the task of doubling the response rates of all our customers in 2006.” 

“You mean that instead of getting 2%, I will get 4%?” he asked showing a comprehensive grasp of the mathematics of the situation. 

I confirmed that this was indeed what we meant. He looked sceptical and asked how exactly this would be done. 

“Over the past 10 years we have evolved a theory of direct mail,” I explained, “which may seem rather esoteric, until you remember that until we came along there was no theory which could explain why one promotion worked and another one flopped. By considering such things as the psychology of perception and what actually happens when someone gets a piece of direct mail we started to see that there were underlying principles – principles that often ran contrary to the common sense beliefs on which most direct mail is based.

 

“So at long last, instead of saying, ‘this advert worked and that advert flopped’, we can now explain exactly why this happened – and so help our clients write better adverts.

 

“But if this message is so important why do you mix it up with all this stuff about Geneva being a nice country?” he demanded. “Who said that anyway?” 

“David Beckham on the occasion of his captaining the English football team there last year,” I said. “Humour is one of the four techniques for direct mail that regularly works.” 

“What are the others?” he asked. 

“I’d love to tell you,” I told him, “but I am about to run out of space.” 

  

Tony Attwood 

PS: If you’d like to know about the four techniques of direct mail that really work – and why they work, send me an email at Tony@hamilton-house.com, and I’ll send you back by email the report “The Four Techniques”. No charge, no obligation, no Voiture Flambée.