RULE #11
Avoid the dark side of web design.
Have you ever seen a newspaper or magazine printed entirely in knockout type? There’s a good reason – reverse type is hard to read. A dark background works fine as a design element, but it’s best to use a light background behind the text.
RULE #12
Manage your media buy like a mutual fund.
When purchasing across several media outlets – daily, weekly or monthly scrutiny of performance is a must and should be done by your agency and communicated. Once results are tabulated, make adjustments and evaluate the sum of the parts.
- Evaluate each purchase daily, weekly or monthly
- Buy based on cost efficiency by using CPM (cost per thousand), the one true relative measure that can be used across various media
- Make adjustments
RULE #13
Put your copy to the test.
So, you’ve written the copy, and hit all the points. Now put your words to the test with these tried-and-true questions:
- Is it present tense? The present outsells the future because the present is NOW.
- Does it use action verbs? Spotlight what your offer will DO for your prospects. Focus on verbs and nouns and downplay adjectives.
- Is it simple and direct? People are overwhelmed with too much information. Keep it simple and to the point. Cut out extraneous words or phrases. Prospects are more likely to read short, easy-to-scan copy.
RULE #14
Use database analytics to inform your marketing planning.
A simple RFM (Recency/Frequency/Monetary) analysis can tell you which customers are buying, how often and how much money they are spending. Use RFM to inform your marketing decisions and drive your audience selection criteria for digital and offline campaigns. On the back end, you’ll be able to demonstrate your success with ROI analysis.
RULE #15
Quick! Grab their attention.
You typically have only three seconds to do it. Email marketing and direct mail marketing follow many of the same principles. One is the three-second rule. Recipients of your direct mail and email campaigns will invest less than three seconds when deciding to read or trash your direct mail or email.
