Making Teasers Work

By George Duncan

The effectiveness of direct-mail teasers depends on how well they match the characteristics of your magazine and its audience. This article can help you select the best offer for your situation.

You've probably been told many times that there are two answers to every question about direct mail. One is, "It depends," and the other is, "Test it."

One of the questions that I'm frequently asked is, "Do envelope teasers work?" And, my answer is, "The right ones do." What are the right teasers? Actually, there are three basic types of teasers, and the one that may work best for you depends on relevant circumstances. The type of teaser you should consider depends on your marketing situation, your list quality, and your position regarding the quantity/quality ratio. The three types of teasers are offer, benefit, and issue.

The Offer Teaser

This teaser offers a free issue, a complimentary copy, a discount price, a sweepstakes, or a gift. For example: Subscribe now and save 50 percent off the newsstand price. Send for your free examination issue of Widget World today! Inside: special introductory savings! Get this walk around radio FREE with the certificate enclosed! You may have already won $5 million!

Offer teasers are effectively used by those publications that are in highly competitive markets and have a similar editorial focus. They share a definable universe, and substantial business flows from one to the other from year to year.

Offer teasers can also be effective when you are using lists that may have poorly defined target markets, because the teasers provide the widest possible appeal - something free. The quality of subscriber these teasers attract, however, is likely to be lower than with other appeals. These subscribers may not renew if they're responding more to your deal than to your publication's editorial content. Gross response may be relatively high, but pay-up and renewal rates will probably be poor.

This is the essence of the quantity/quality ratio. In most cases, when the quantity is up, the quality of the respondents is down and vice versa. If you want to keep pumping in expensive, new subscribers - and some publishers do - you should expect to have a high percentage of them fall off at renewal time.

Incidentally, if you use one of these offers in your marketing strategy, you don't necessarily have to broadcast it on the envelope. You may be better off using a benefit or issue teaser on the outer envelope to better qualify those who actually open your mail and then attempt to draw a higher response among those prospects with a liberal or soft offer inside

The Benefit Teaser

As the name implies, a benefit teaser promises a benefit for the reader - not a feature, attribute, or characteristic of the publication. One quick guide I suggest is to refer to the old nursery rhyme and determine how your magazine or newsletter will make the reader healthy, wealthy, or wise. To make the feature/benefit problem easier, remember that features have to do with things; benefits have to do with people.

Examples of benefit teasers include: See inside and increase your personal productivity fivefold! Open your child's mind to the world and its wonders! Or, Now you'll KNOW what's happening in the marketplace!

The benefit teaser has a narrower appeal than the offer teaser. Few benefits are truly universal. In the examples I've listed, for instance, some prospects may not be particularly concerned with personal productivity. They may believe that their child's mind is fine as it is or that they already know what's happening in the marketplace. There is some risk, but relative to the offer teaser, the benefit teaser attracts a person who is more in tune with your editorial mission. Consequently, your pay-up rate is better, as well as your renewal rate. Just be sure not to promise something that your magazine can't deliver. There is no reason not to hedge your bet, however, and add an offer-related phrase to your benefit teaser: Find out FREE with the certificate enclosed!

You need to know your market very well if you are going to use a benefit teaser; so, do your homework. Find out what your readers care about. Determine why they're reading your publication. Read the letters to the editor, especially the ones that don't get published. Call subscribers and chat; talk to the editors. This kind of research also will prepare you for the issue teaser, which is similar to the benefit teaser but creates more impact.

The Issue Teaser

Consider, for example, a promotion for a nursing publication aimed specifically at medical-surgical nurses. The issue teaser, a subject of concern to the reader, might read, Guess how med-surg nurses rated their jobs recently? For a children's magazine, the teaser might read, Tomorrow's successes begin today. Will your child be among them? Bill Jayme's oft-quoted classic for Psychology Today was, Do you close the bathroom door when no one else is home?

These are the grabbers. They are finely focused and, therefore, the riskiest of the three types of teasers, but they really get prospects involved, and involvement is the ultimate goal of direct mail.

Another issue teaser that's equally effective in getting prospects involved is the offer of an editorially related premium such as a special report about a significant issue or topic. For example, a magazine featuring demographics could offer a series of reprints about consumer trends.

Newsletters and business/professional publications can make particularly effective use of this strategy, offering reprints of articles or ancillary studies as premiums either with a trial order or with payment. In reprint offers, the title is important. It gives focus to what otherwise might be little more than a "Best of..." premium. As a sales aid for your magazine, a "best of" premium adds nothing to the value of your offer. The more closely related the premium is to your publication's editorial content, the better it will perform in terms of both quantity and quality of subscribers.

The issue teaser probably produces the highest quality reader, even if the gross response does suffer somewhat. The issue teaser requires thorough research and good list work. You must be sure that your offer is worthwhile and that you're talking to the right prospects. Blend those two elements with a little imagination, and you'll have a winner in the issue teaser.