Ok this is hard to explain, but the direct mail letters they send out to lists of customers all seem to look the same. I mean if you subscribe to a cooking magazine, they will sell your address to some business who sends you a direct mail advertisement for something cooking related (i.e. another magazine), in the form of a letter.
But what I notice is they all use the same form and font. They use that ‘typewriter’ style courier new, and the same margins, with boldface ‘quotes’ between paragraphs. They also seem to use the same paper, and have ‘fake highlighting’ a lot (like someone hand typed the letter and used a highlighter on it because they care about you so much).
Are the same marketing companies doing this, or is it just the most effective way to get people to respond?
An example would be an advertisement from consumer reports magazine, trying to get me to subscribe.
You have more or less answered your own question…
They use that technique because it works on their targeted demographic.
The marketing companies that produce this sort of thing are not risk takers. They make their money by being able to gaurentee a certain percentage of “sales” from their mail outs. They have found a format that works and are sticking with it.
As the demographics age, their marketing schemes will become less effective as the consumers recieving their materials “spot” the fakery (highlighting, “handwritten” personalised notes, etc) that modern technology/printing/mass mailings can produce.
They will then shift their ploy to represent something that works better with tech savy consumers… (10 free I-pod downloads if you respond with in next 12 hours)
in the end, they are just trying to get you to buy something
regards
FML
Yes, true.
My other question is how effective it is. Obviously some editor at consumer reports didn’t use a typewriter to write me a personal letter, a la 1975. And the highlighting is just printer ink.
So who is stupid enough to buy because of that?
Or is there demographic composed of country bumpkins?
You forgot to mention the P.S. There is always a P.S. tagged onto the ends of these letters.
Even when the letter is actually an e-mail, where there is absolutely no logical reason to add a P.S. instead of going back and inserting the “oh, one more thing” information into the appropriate place in the body of the message. Well, the only reason is that the P.S. always simply repeats something that was already stated 3 or 4 times in the body, and so the P.S. is simply a way to say it one more time.
Pay attention, this is the REAL reason… That THEY don’t WANT you to kn0w…
At least one of these so-called junk mails you’ve been getting, is actually of critical importance to you. Like that one that says not that you MAY have already won $1,000,000, but actually says that you HAVE already won $1,000,000? Missed it, didn’t ya?
Well THEY are companies who are GIVING away these large amounts of money, due to LAWSUITS or other LEGAL requirements, and THEY don’t WANT to! Of course not, how would they MAKE money by GIVING it away??! It’s NUTS!!
So what they do, is they spend a LOT of money FLODDING the winners with REAL junk mail. Blah blah blah, COUPONS, blah blah blah, CATALOG for CRAP that you never want. Maybe even addressed to fictitious former residents.
sO BE careful! ALWAYS open all your junk mail and respond to any ones that say you won something. BEcause some of them are REALL!!!
(PS - Please PM me your mailing address.)