Nielsen Associates Marketing Tips

Following are the important rules for direct mail marketing. They are not hard to follow if you just make them "Policy" in your organization.

1. Sell the Benefits, not the features
2. Test, Test, Test
3. Evaluate "cost per order" and "average sale"
4. Back to Number 1

1. Sell the Benefits, Not the features. A common mistake in marketing is talking about what you offer rather than what it means to the customers. As an example, our company has the latest inkjet technology for addressing your mailing piece, BUT what is important is that that equipment provides excellent quality addressing, printed directly on the mailing piece, without the need for a label.

We could say
"Nielsen Associates has the latest greatest inkjet equipment."

Or We Could say
"No more labels - we imprint your customers address directly onto your mailing piece with the best and highest quality addressing systems on the market."

Don't tell your customers you have great service. Tell them exactly what you do that makes your service great. And how it will benefit them, whether the benefit is cost savings, increased business, peace of mind, etc.

2. Test, Test, Test - also called "Benchmarking" - never stop testing and evaluating alternative headlines, copy, graphics and lists, always continuing to test your best against something new or altered.

3. Evaluate: Keep good records. A simple method of evaluation is to determine both "cost per order" and "average sale". Number of orders received, by itself, is not a true indication of success. To arrive at cost per order use this formula: Cost of mailing (design, printing, mailing, postage) + Discount or Offer / Number of orders received.

Test 1:

10,000 pieces mailed costing $3000 for printing, postage and mailing. Your offer was 10% discount. You received 589 orders with total sales of $25,600.

Calculation:
Cost of Mailing = 3000
Sales before discount = 25,600/.9 (some number x .9 (10% of) = 25,600) = 28,444
Discount = 28,444(sales before discount)- 25,600(sales) = 2844
Number of sales = 520
Cost per sale = (3000+2844)/520 = $9.92
Average Sale = 25,600/520 = $49.23

Test 2:

10000 pieces mailed costing $3000 for printing, postage and mailing. Your offer was a free widget with every order. You received 465 orders with total sales of $39000.

Calculation:
Cost of Mailing = 3000
Offer = 465 x 3.40 (cost of widget) = 1581
Number of sales = 120
Cost per sale = (3000+1581)/465 = $12.00
Average Sale = 39,000/465 = $83.87

Evaluation:
Although test 1 brought in more customers and cost less per customer to bring in, test 2 clearly attracted customers with more money to spend and resulted in substantially higher total sales.

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