Is there a simple way of raising response rates in shared mailings without visiting the Toppled Bollard?

Sometimes I feel like it is all getting too much.

Last week a potential customer asked me to meet with him to discuss shared mailing response rates. He specifically asked to be taken to the Toppled Bollard (famed watering hole of the marketing intelligentsia) and said he had read much of what I have written on the subject and wanted to clarify a few points.

As you might expect I was delighted to agree to this proposal, and even suggested that ahead of the meeting the customer might care to read my monograph on the subject (“Research into the effectiveness of shared mailings”), which I duly sent in the post.

(I must admit I have never actually been quite sure what a monograph is – but I do recall that Sherlock Holmes wrote one on methods of identifying 35 different types of cigar ash, and anything that is good enough for Holmes is good enough for me).

At the allotted time we duly trotted along to the said Bollard where the usual crowd of marketing ne’er-do-wells were gathered around the new politically correct slot machine that Billy the Dog, our amiable landlord, has recently installed. (If you get three John Prescotts in a row you get as much food as you can eat in the Bollard free of charge and Billy even pays for the ambulance afterwards.)

As soon as we had settled, my guest came to the point. “We’ve been printing on blue until now,” he said, “but I thought we might move across to yellow – and maybe print as a DL.”

“Black on yellow does tend to stand out,” I replied, “and I think A4 works best in shared mailings, but the difference is small compared with the increase in sales you could get by changing the text. The words you write define the response rate.”

He looked dubious, and moved quickly on. We talked about dates, about whom to mail, about illustrations… all the things that can indeed change response rates slightly. But try as I might, I could not get him to think about the words. On his way back from the toilet my guest tried the new slot machine and won. Billy let out a scream.

And somehow this keeps happening to me. Not the slot machine bit – Billy’s fixed the odds and no one has won since – but my failure to convince people that it’s the text that defines the response rates. I am beginning to wonder if it has something to do with the Bollard. Maybe if I restricted my guests to no more than 3 bottles of Château Dog prior to discussing the key issues that would help them focus a little. What do you think?

Tony Attwood

My monograph (if that is indeed what it is) on shared mailing response rates is available at www.hamilton-house.com/responses.htm. Hope you find it helpful.