Direct mail packages: design that sells

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Oct, 1988 by Elaine Tyson

Photographs can be used to point prospects toward your objective. They can be used facing the copy to promote readership or to move prospects along to the order card.

6. Creating flow and movement avoids boredom.

A well-designed circulation direct mail package is never static. Every component inside the package must perform the task of getting the prospect to the order card.

A simple but effective way to make a prospect move along in a direct mail letter is to end a page of copy in the middle of a thought, rather than at a period. Prospects feel compelled to turn a letter over to complete the sentence. An arrow can point prospects in the right direction.

Direct mail packages have to "flow." Flow is created and sustained by making certain all folded package components work logically so prospects aren't confused or annoyed. To be sure you've accomplished this objective, hand your comps to an associate and watch what happens as he or she looks at the package. If your associate hesitates or opens things upside down or incorrectly, you'd be wise to rethink what you've done.

Adding dimension to your design with tints helps eliminate a flat, uninteresting appearance. You can use a color tint to hold together a panel of your brochure or a block of copy. This technique helps prospects absorb copy points and makes the copy easier to read.

Design is problem solving and organization. It brings order from chaos and gets prospects to pay attention and want to find out more. It makes direct mail letters look easy to read, keeps prospects moving along to the order card, never confuses and always enlightens. It's understanding human nature and human physiology. It's 50 percent of the success of any package.

Personal taste must never be allowed to dictate your marketing decisions. Judging a direct mail package design by its beauty alone is not enough. It has to work. Has the prospect been led through the package? That's the acid test for direct mail designers.

There are some beauties around, but even the best of the best might not win an art director's club award. Direct mail design must be intelligent. Good designers aren't afraid to use proven techniques--underlining, bursts and banners, bullets and subheads, handwritten notes and all the other available bells and whistles--to make your subscription package the most exciting offer your prospect received today.