Someone – an accountant, what a surprise! – wrote to me a week or so asking what response rate you should expect.
He was “firming up” his direct mail plans.
I gave the same reply I have been giving for the past 30-odd years.
“That is an impossible question to answer, and anyone who purports to give you a figure is talking tosh.
That is because the response rate depends in many, many factors, including:
1. What are you asking people to do? To enquire, to buy, to try, to attend an event – etc.
2. What is the cost of what you are asking them to buy/try – etc. The more it costs, the lower the likely response
3. Who are you mailing? A cold list? A qualified list? Enquirers? Enquirers about what? Buyers?
4. When are you mailing – which time of year?
Then I elaborated:
There is no benchmark or average. It is governed by the situation.
For instance:
One client is delighted to get 0.01% response. They sell home improvements.
One mailing we did at Ogilvy some years ago got a 125% response: it was about legal obligations; people passed it on to others.
I didn’t even cover the rather important matter – equally imponderable – of how appealing is whatever you are selling.
For instance, electronic cigarette substitutes are selling like crazy. They are opening shops for them. Not long ago one of my partners sold a website he had developed for £250,000.
And in my emails to the accountant I made one final point:
This is a complex business. People think they can just “try a mailing” without studying it.
Would you recommend that to somebody about to create a set of accounts?
Drayton
I so, so agree with your thoughts and love this blog.
Here’s why….
I manage the DM programme for an accountant with many branches. We mail a very clean cold prospect database three times a year (DMA member, top notch data).
I write the letter and newsletter for each campaign and thus far have managed to generated 6 figure fees and reversed the doom and gloom of their previous DM campaigns.
It is a relief when I read your blogs. They confirm I am doing the right thing and of course they teach me new approaches! And I offer up the same response too when asked ‘ what response rate can I expect?’ A client rang yesterday to report a 100% uptake on one of my DM campaigns. We were not asking the sun, moon and stars…simply asking the golf club pro in the golf shop to consider stocking a box of her protein bars. A nice little letter and good telephone follow up call and hey presto a 100% uptake. For my accountancy client, response can be .5% but the lifetime value of each new client and the size of the initial fees makes this an attractive statistic.
Thank you for sharing such fabulous tips. You keep me sane in a world of online gurus and experts telling me ‘traditional marketing is dead’
Dee
You’re very kind, Dee.
I would love to say my stuff is good because I’m brilliant. Sadly not so.
I look good only by comparison. Most people in this business – actually in most businesses – are just too damned idle or stupid to study.
Most of the rest study the wrong things. And many of those who do study use what they have learned to rip people off.
In particular people do not study how to write well.
They do not study past precedent.
And what they do study tends to be restricted to marketing, a rather narrow subject which attracts an astounding number of pretentious bores – especially those connected with business schools.
Great post Drayton.
As you know, I specialise in door drops, but so much of what you say in the post is still oh so true.
One on the most common questions ever asked is “what is the average response rate”?
And proposing to so many of these people about the merits of testing can become a real mission!
The crass folly of people who prefer to guess rather than know always astounds me.
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Drayton – I’m still thinking this post to the extent that I’m going to link it my website!
Just credit it to the old codger, Graham
Our response rates for Email and DM are all over the place. Just because we got a good response rate on one email and horrible on another really means nothing. We just keep sending communications till they buy.
I would just say try harder, test stuff and aim for , “10% better than last time”
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