Archive for December, 2005

The first creative decision in creating a mailing program is to decide ‘the look’ of the package. Is it OK to be seen as a marketing piece; or should it look like a personalized commu- nicationfrom the bank? There are times for both.

There is a seven second window of opportunity to get the reader to open the mail and decide to read through the letter. They ask: Does this look like something of interest to me? And if yes, can I quickly get the key points?

Many writers have successfully used long letters of two, four, even eight pages to make the sale. These long letters are most effective when the reader really caresand is interested in the subject… and they are willing to take the time to wade through the long copy.

Should you print a marketing message on the outside of your mailing envelope? The answer is, “It depends.”

The first challenge in financial direct mail is presenting a quality package that gives the appearance of an important, personalized communication. Because people are so busy, they tend to sort their mail into two piles: the “B Pile” of mailthat appears to be mass marketing and/or not of immediate interest to them … and the”A Pile” of mailthat appears to be important and personalized (the pile that doesn’t get put aside or thrown out).

Developing a successful customer cross-sell program involves many steps;but the return on investment of the marketing dollars makes it all worthwhile. One of the final steps is creating a mailing calendar, which will put all the plans in place for the upcoming year.

Bank Intelligence ScoresTM

The starting point is to analyze the bank’s customer database in order to identify the best prospects. WordComand Customer Intelligence’s unique study of bank customers showed that multi-service households have the greatest likelihood of purchasing additional products in the near future. Single- service households have the second highest likelihood, and totally free checking households are the least likely to purchase additional products.

When using a letter/envelope mailing package (i.e.not a postcard or self-mailer), a basic decision is whether to use a window envelope or to “move up”to a personalized, closed-face outer envelope.

Regardless of the size of the outer envelope, most come in a window version, with clear plastic allowing the name and address to show through from the personalized letter inside. While the window version is fractionally moreexpensive, the larger cost difference is the savings of not having two personalized pieces (the letter and the envelope).