Handling Direct Responses

Direct Response… Maxi Marketing… Customer List Generation. Buzzwords of the 90’s.

“Put a coupon in your ad and responses will pour in, sales will zoom up…” say the direct marketing pundits. Many a marketing controller is enamoured by this great new (age-old?) marketing weapon. A number of ads appear with very well designed coupon. We’re sure thousands of responses are generated. But what happens thereafter?

In order to find out how companies “Respond to Direct Responses”, we undertook a very simple experiment. During a specific period, a number of newspapers/magazines were scanned for ads with coupons or a specific “write-in” offer. Capital goods and industrial machinery were excluded. The net basket of products included a diverse list: suitings, blades, personal computers, infant foods, sanitaryware, investment and holiday resorts. We mailed out a total of over 30 coupons/letters during the specified period.

We then waited for the responses for these coupons. The first to respond was a holiday resort company, which sent a sales person to call on us. This happened within 10 days of us posting the coupon. A record?

Almost nothing really happened for the next 10 to 15 days. Then responses started trickling in, but very slowly. We made a few amazing discoveries:

• The sanitaryware company sent a poorly photocopied brochure along with an apologetic letter. And they were trying to sell high-cost bathroom accessories!
• The investment company had sent the wrong brochure and had pasted the coupon on the envelope. Where does that leave list generation, a holy objective of the Direct Response ads?
• Close to 50 percent of the companies never did respond, even after three months.

The exercise was indeed an eye opener. Many an advertising practitioner very often recommends Direct Response without going behind the scene to study the logistics. Obviously a number of these coupon-friendly companies had not set up their backroom logistics-there was no system of address capture, collation and systematic mailing. These failures led to our not receiving any response or receiving it months late or receiving a poorly photocopied one at best.

Many Direct Marketing gurus recommend this common test to check the efficiency of ‘Responding’. Send a few coupons (under dummy names if so desired) to your own ad. Then wait for the response.

Well, this is what we did when Ulka-Bangalore ran the “Save 20 percent” campaign for Birla Super cement. We had to wait for our free booklet. But it came to us in 10 days. Not a bad batting average!

Behind the scene, this is what had happened. Over 3,000 coupons came in the first three days. This led to a change in strategy from the client and agency standpoint. The agency was entrusted the task of handling the job and if required use any outside help. Since torrential response was expected after gauging the first three days mail, a data entry EDP outfit was hired and was told to generate the address labels on pregummed label sheets. The booklet printer was instructed to prepare the envelope with the complete package of inserts and booklet.

The agency arranged for a logistics programme whereby the responses were mailed out within five working days. In spite of the number of responses being far greater than anticipated, the system worked well. Helping the homemakers receive the useful booklet before they had started building and a good copy at that!

A few simple moves help in responding quicker to customers:

Try to get the responses to come to a specified box number. Putting the general office address will only overload the system.

Get the address capture done immediately thereafter-if possible through a specialist cell.

Mail out the standard brochure/mailer immediately. Very often the eager product manager wants to go through all the responses.

It is useful to identify high-value prospects for personal followup and it should be done as soon as possible. But for the sake of identifying that one prospect why make the other 99 wait for 20 days?

Depending on the value of the product, a simple reminder mailer to all customers who responded will help in increasing conversion.

Last but not the least, ensure that adequate numbers of brochures are printed and ready before the campaign starts.

All these may sound very basic, mundane, even stupid. But try sending in five coupons today and you’ll discover what this has been all about!

(Based on an article that appeared in Brand Equity Annual 1995)

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