Selling books to schools

The key points that are most likely to generate a higher response rate in your direct mail are...

These six topics are dealt with in this section - click on the links above to read each one.

You have to say something that really does grab attention. It could be offering something free, or it might be asking a really interesting question or offering a big benefit.

It could even be funny - although these are harder to make work - or it could be emotional. The headline

But one way or another you have to grab attention. The average receipient of a mailshot looks at it for four seconds and then throws it away. If you are going to do anything in direct mail you have to grab attention in those few seconds and make it all happen then. You have to interest, excite, enthrall - and all in four seconds.

Time again I say to people - "why didn't you tell me about x or y - those are your best selling points."

If you don't think this is valid - see how teachers read direct mail. Normally at break time in the staff room, looking at four pieces of paper, holding a coffee, trying to sit down somewhere, trying to avoid someone's eye, trying to avoid spilling the coffee. This is not an easy time to do it. You have to grab their attention in the middle of all this.

Once you have got attention you have to hold it - readers will drift away within a second or two if you don't say something really exciting at this point.

Let's imagine you used "Do you believe in love at first sight" as a way of selling a car. If you then said

"That's how it seems when customers walk into our showroom and see the new range of Modern Language readers for the first time."

"Of all the questions that divide the world - this one probably gives more insight into what sort of person you are, than any other. Which one are you - and what does it mean for the rest of your life?"

then you would keep the readership - because you are writing about the readers not writing about yourself and your product.

"And what of the children you teach. Where do they fall in this spectrum. They may not be thinking of love of the opposite sex, but what about pieces of music and TV programmes. Do they give each one a chance, or is it an immediate decision?

My view is that the instant decision is coming more and more to the fore, which is why we always make sure that, from line 1, every sentence we produce grabs attention, excites, and enthuses...

Holding the reader's attention is the mark of the professional. Most people, on getting direct mail, only read bits and pieces. They look at the sales letter and then slip onto something else.

Maybe they read the headline, and the first line, and then start skipping. You have to deal with this - make the start of each paragraph particularly noteworthy and grabbing of attention.

The professional will include one or two items part way down the page that will get the reader back again. Some suggest sub-headlines, but we've never found this works - and rather suspect it is one of those old tales that someone once saw in a £3 Exchange and Mart book on how to write direct mail, and everyone has been repeating ever since.

Instead what we like to do is add the one line paragraph and a PS that really throws the reader back into the piece. Loads of readers skip to the PS - and the temptation is to add a "Give me a call on" as the PS - which is uninspiring. Try to make the PS something that forces the reader back in.

Our best attempt ever at a PS that just made everyone talk about the letter because of the PS alone - phoning us up, writing emails... :

Probably the most productive four words (in terms of forcing people to pick up the phone and eventually get to a sale) that we have ever written.

Both do the same thing - they throw the reader back into the letter trying to work out what it is that you are really talking about.

There is a temptation in all advertising to try to grab the reader's attention with a really exciting image (it can be text or it can be a photo, a design... anything) that has nothing much to do with the rest of the promotion.

If the image has nothing much to do with the product you are selling then it is quite possible that the person seeing the advert will drift away from the advert, without ever actually seeing what you are advertising. The grabby image is remembered, the product is forgotten.

Keep focussing on the image and keep that image in a whole series of adverts so that eventually over the whole campaign the image becomes associated with the product.

Force the grabby image to have a link with the product.

In the first example you might decide that you want to associate the books you publish with elegance and style. So you always a classic illustration on your advertisements and in your advertisements - the sales letters are written in a particular manner that reflects your approach, and the message is that there are always new fangled ways of doing things, but classic elegance is always important. The danger of the approach being remembered ahead of the product, or people just seeing the message and then not even making the link to the product, are overcome by endless linkage.

In the second example you might decide you want to associate your books with the image of the James Bond type mythical spy. So you send out a letter which suggests that you are part of MI6, recruiting spies for the future, and that you will be using your books to carry secret messages, and that all readers will become embroiled in the world of military intelligence. When recruitment and training is complete the reader will of course also get a full membership pack from the Service

Here, since we all know spies use codes and code books, everyone sees the link - doubled because the individual being written to is brought into the story. And there is a benefit because you can offer every teacher a collection of 30 secret service badges with each classroom set of the reader.

(Actually I always wanted to give away a highly fashionable pin on badge which said "Beethoven to the Blues" with each copy of a Key Stage 3 music book, but no one has commissioned me to do the advert yet. It can be argued that I am ahead of the game. But on the other hand, until you try it, you just don't know.)

It is extraordinary just how many designers ignore the psychology of perception - treating the page as if the brain does not have its own way of dealing with incoming data.

Volumes can be written on this - but here is one hint. Give 99% of the population who read English (i.e. left to right text) a sheet of A4 with text on it, and they will look for something about 25% of the way down the page to read. So put your headline there. What designers are doing putting headlines anywhere else is a mystery.

And always be quite clear where you want the reader to go. Where do you want me to start looking? Now - will my eye automatically go there, or am I being pulled somewhere else?

90% of leaflets designed as DL (.i.e a sheet of A4 folded in 3) ignore this so that one is never clear which order the pages go in.).

There is quite a bit more on the psychology of perception on www.mailing.org.uk but if you don't want to read all the theory ask your designer what he/she knows about it. If the answer is not a lot, take care.

If the answer is any of these, ask yourself which one you would like most of all. Then make sure everything you do in your advert pushes the reader towards that. If alternative responses are ok, that is fine - you can mention them at the end with the order form.