May 4, 2009, Chicago, IL: “In tough times, your best customers become prey for your competitors. All the more reason to stay in touch,” stated Steve Cuno, author of The Bankers Direct Mail Bible.

Cuno offered his observations during an April 29, 2009 Webcast entitled, “Direct Mail for Financial Institutions,” hosted by OnsiteConference, Inc., a privately held research marketing firm located in Tampa, Florida. Cuno, CEO of the Response Agency, Midvale, Utah, featured in the presentation his twenty-three secrets for building responses.

“If you can show provable results, the bean counters will leave you alone,” commented Cuno. He added, “Which raises the question of, ‘what is a good response rate?’ The answer depends upon on what you know about the value of the customer. Ideally, you should know customer life time value (LTV), but few banks know this number.”

“Without LTV, a good response rate is break-even or better,” according to Cuno.

“How can you tell what response rate to expect? You need to consider past campaigns, your own testing and predictive results,” Cuno continued. “If your testing can garner thirty or more responses, you’ve got something predictable.”

According to Cuno, all strong direct mail campaigns are built upon three “crucial” strategic pillars:

1. Know where and how to reach your market

2. Give people a compelling reason to respond immediately

3. Know and trust proven creative techniques

Cuno explained that direct mail is a personal medium, and has to be approached from the perspective of one person writing to another. “A customer comes from a different mindset than a prospect,” he observed. When trying to figure out the mindset of your target audience, Cuno recommended asking yourself a series of questions, including:

Who is this person? What kind of demographics do they represent? What are their politics, worries, passions and point-of-view? Do they have kids? How many? Is there seasonality to the targets' purchase of the product you offer?

Cuno’s second pillar he described as the, “The Big Huge Rule That Never Changes (NEVER!). To generate the fastest, largest direct mail response, Cuno recommends offering an attractive, limited-time incentive.

“Compelling reasons, such as ‘Act now, and get this free!’ may be familiar, but a related common question is, ‘Just how much time should be given when stating Act Now?’ I recommend never making it more than 30 days, or perhaps the end of the next month,” offered Cuno. “You don’t want someone to see your offer and think, ‘I ought to do this sometime,’ because sometimes become never.” He added, “But a free offer kicks someone over the line and gets them to act now.”

“Another interesting fact about the use of incentives,” added Cuno, “is that the higher up you are in the income and education scale, the more likely the consumer will respond to incentives.”

The third pillar, Know and Trust Proven Creative Techniques, is at the heart of Cuno’s twenty-three Response-Building Secrets. “Because direct mail is so measurable, we have a great idea about what works, and what merely achieves,” stated Cuno. “My response building secrets are based upon what we know works.” These secrets include:

1. Set and remember your objectives

2. Focus your offer by making just one offer at a time.

3. Emulate successful salespeople

4. Send a letter as this is the backbone of direct response

5. Make the letter look like a letter, as letters in envelopes always sell more than a brochure by itself.

6. Use an addressed envelope, avoiding labels when possible to avoid the bulk mail look.

7. Enclose a postpaid business reply card or envelope

8. Consider including a brochure

9. Consider including a lift note

10. Make responding easy

11. Be clear and to the point

12. Motivate

13. Say enough (no more, no less)

14. Use conversational English and small words

15. Lock away your inner nitpicker

16. Set body copy in a serif font

17. Avoid reverse type

18. What you say matters more than how it looks

19. How it looks matters a lot

20. Make layouts accessible

21. Include a clear, easy to find call to action

22. Track response

23. When evaluating results, avoid all-or-nothing thinking


Cuno concluded his presentation by commenting, “Direct mail became the industry it is because it works. What works in direct mail is not what you think works, it’s not about what you like.” He added, “By practicing the discipline of Direct Response, you put yourself into a position of knowing exactly what it is you are selling, and how to get it sold.”

Steve Cuno, The Response Agency, may be reached at 801-268-0355, Steve@ResponseAgency.com; or through his website, www.ResponseAgency.com.