WHAT'S WORTH READING?
Your financial institution sent them an important letter, but most customers didn't
read it.
Why not?
Most likely it was missing the important visual cues people look for before deciding
whether or not to read a letter…even an important letter from you.
Honestly, how many of the letters you receive in your daily mail can you say you've
read from top to bottom?
If you're like most of us – very few!
Then why are we so certain that most of our customers and prospects will read the
letters we send them?
What's at stake here are all the letters you
send customers and prospects – not just promotional letters selling a new
checking or savings account…or an equity line of credit.
By employing the "trade secrets" used by direct response copywriters and
graphic designers, you can dramatically improve
the number of customers and prospects who read every word of the important letters
your bank or credit union sends them.
Your customers and prospects need your help
to determine what's worth reading.
Before continuing on, look right to the sidebar and spend five seconds scanning
the front and back of the Allstate letter and five seconds scanning both pages of
the Geico letter. Based on what you see, would you read either or both letters?
If so, why?
THE NEED FOR MENTAL SHORTCUTS
When you open a personalized envelope from a family member or friend, it's almost
guaranteed that you'll immediately read the hand-written or typed letter inside
from top to bottom.
Consequently, these letters don't require mental shortcuts or hot spots to first
grab your attention.
But all the letters your bank or credit union sends its customers and prospects
are different.
Customers and prospects know before opening
the envelope that the letter inside is almost certainly selling something…or
delivering bad news like an overdraft fee or change in terms.
So you need to incorporate hot spots, including visual elements, to grab their attention
to convince them to read your letter.
Why?
Because the three-second rule presented in the February and March issues of the
newsletter also applies to whether or not customers and prospects read your letters.
Fortunately, as the introductory quote indicates, copywriting expert Robert Bly
believes it to be a five-second rule for letters.
According to direct mail veteran Mal Decker, your letter must be quickly scannable
– enabling your prospect to determine, in a few seconds, whether or not to
read the letter in more detail.
According to Decker, for your letter to be quickly scannable, it requires a "strongly
integrated skeleton." Components of his skeleton are:
1. An eyebrow – better known as the Johnson Box
2. A strong opening or lead paragraph
3. Cross heads – also known as subheads
4. The wrap-up – which is the closing paragraph that includes a restatement
of the offer and the call-to-action
5. The P.S.
What immediately comes to mind reading Decker's list of skeleton components is Professor
Robert Cialdini's mental shortcuts consumers use to make quick decisions.
Expanding on Decker's five skeletal parts, veteran direct mail copywriter Pat Friesen
identifies 12 letter hot spots:
1. Letterhead or masthead (containing the company name and logo)
2. Johnson Box
3. Salutation (personalized or generic)
4. First sentence or paragraph
5. Last paragraph
6. Signature
7. Title with signature
8. P.S. and P.P.S.
9. Copy indented from both sides or underlined
10. Copy in bullet form, second color, or boldface type
11. Indented sub headlines
12. Anything added in handwriting (margin notes, etc.)
Missing from Friesen's extensive list is another favorite hot spot, the involvement
device. Allstate makes excellent use of an involvement device which is covered below.
On his website, freelance direct response copywriter Dean Rieck comments on letter
hot spots. "Prospects scan for relevancy. The hot spots people scan include
headlines, subheads, picture captions, signature, postscript [P.S.], and the acceptance
statement on your response device. People are not particularly savvy about direct
mail, but they know where to go to get the scoop on your offer. And if they don't
see something that interests them, your mail goes into the trash."
According to Shirley Lichti, marketing expert and founding partner of Marketing
Magic, "Probably the two most important hot spots on a letter are the Johnson
Box or headline and the P.S. just below the signature. Both try to create interest
and convince people to read the entire letter. Since consumers know they will find
the most important information point of the letter repeated in the postscript, many
save time by going directly to this spot."
Freelance copywriter Robert W. Bly writes, "Know the 'hot spots' of your direct
mail package – the places that get the most readership. Those include: the
first paragraphs of the letter, its subheads, its last paragraph, and the postscript
(80% of readers look at the P.S.)."
By now you may be asking yourself, given that most people read a letter from top
to bottom, do they scan for hot spots in the same order?
This brings up the issue of an initial hot spot scanning order.
ORDER OF SCANNING
Some quick research yields conflicting information as to a consistent order for
scanning a letter's hot spots.
According to Michael Masterson in his book, Michael Masterson's Accelerated Program
For Six-Figure Copywriting, "You see, in an ideal world, your prospect
would sit down with your letter and read it from beginning to end. But that's not
what usually happens. What usually happens is that she glances at your headline
[Johnson Box copy] and turns to the end of your letter to see what it's really about.
This is when she comes across your P.S."
One list found on an Internet website provides the following order, which coincidently
is the same as that provided by ACTON Marketing's senior copywriter:
1. P.S.
2. Johnson Box
3. Subheads
4. Bolded or color copy
Other direct mail experts claim that the opening of the letter – the first
sentence or two – has the highest readership rate. They determine whether
or not your prospect continues reading.
We'll give the last word to direct mail entrepreneur and expert copywriter Joe Sugarman.
In his 2007 book, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook, Sugarman writes, "All
the elements in an advertisement [letter] are primarily designed to do one thing
and one thing only: get you to read the first sentence of the copy."
On that comment, all direct mail experts agree.
Bottom line when it comes to an order of scanning: The order isn't as important
as the presence of a sufficient number of hot spots or mental shortcuts. Their purpose
is to help ensure your customer or prospect takes the additional time to read as
much of your letter as possible and say "yes."
The remainder of this month's newsletter will cover the five most basic hot spots
with a sixth thrown in as a bonus thanks to the Allstate letter.
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