I've been able to work with a lot of wonderful direct marketers over the years, including the late Jack Shurman and Joan Throckmorton. Both of them taught me a tremendous amount about direct mail and subscriptions marketing. That's how we learn, by working with practitioners who understand direct marketing and are willing to teach others what they know. Joan and Jack passed along to me a love for magazines and a love of a very old advertising discipline: direct mail.
Here are three very important tips that work now and will work in the future:
1. Offers drive promotions.
You can't sell anything without a strong offer. The stronger your offer, the more success you'll have. So, working to strengthen your offer is always worthwhile. Good direct marketers state and restate their offers until they're perfect. Then, they test them. Never, never change your offer without testing it first. After all, an offer can reduce as well as increase response.
2. Benefits sell.
Prospects want to know what your magazine will do for them. How will it save them money, make them money, help them be successful, secure, better parents ... they don't really care how many industry awards you've won or what else you publish.
Hint: If you spell out your benefits clearly and state them over and over throughout your package, then you can tell them about your awards and company history, too. This information gives your offer credibility but is not a substitute for benefits.
3. Copy has to be written before a package can be designed.
You can't be successful writing to fit a layout. But writers need to work with designers to be sure copy has visual impact as well as to avoid such pitfalls as too small type and copy dropped out of dark backgrounds.
Extra Note (From a Subscription Marketer!)
This past year has been the perfect storm for magazine publishers. Advertising is down sharply in most markets, costs have escalated and new media has made inroads. Publishers resist change and have done so for my entire career in this industry. Now, I'd like to encourage them to resist killing the goose that laid the proverbial golden egg.
The current business model needs work, but publishers can't sell as much advertising on a website as in a magazine. A print product forms the broad base of the triangle in building a community. Without it, it's difficult to hold that community together. If all you know about your customers is their email addresses, what do you really know that will attract advertisers?
