Doubtless you have wondered at the idiocy of people who would waste effort by encouraging customers to say “no.” Why do they do it?

Sometimes there are legal reasons. If you are running a sweepstakes, you cannot require a purchase for someone to enter. If you do, then you are in the gambling business and running afoul of gaming laws. So you give the person the option of entering without buying anything by using the “no” sticker.

But all sorts of merchants use it in all sorts of other situations where there is not even a hint of legal ramifications. Why? And why do they use such a cumbersome method as requiring you to find a sticker, peel it off, find the spot on a reply card that matches it, stick it on that spot and then mail the card? Why not simply give you a card to mail back if you want to buy? You can throw the package away if you don’t want to buy. Are they dumb or what?

No, they are not dummies. They are actually quite bright people. Fiendishly bright people. And there is much method in their madness. They are using a technique called “involvement.”

Asking You To Do Something
Research has shown that any time a direct response mailer can get a prospect to “do” something, the response rate always increases. And merely asking the reader to do something will increase response — even if he does not actually do it.

Am I saying that response rates to your mailing will increase if you ask your prospect to “do” something to some part of your mail?

That is precisely what I am saying. And the more you ask them to do, and succeed in getting them to do, the higher the response rate goes. Reader’s Digest, one of the best players in the direct response business, is constantly experimenting with how far it can go. The folks at the Digest ask you to read their letter carefully, find letters or symbols hidden in the copy and put them in appropriate places on a reply card. They ask you questions, the answers to which are buried in dense copy in their letters. The inducement they offer is that if you comply with their request, then you will be eligible for an extra $xxxx per week, month or whatever, should you be lucky enough to win the grand prize.

You get involved as you read the letter, and more involved as you hunt for whatever it is they ask you to hunt for. Can you cheat and not read their letter as you do your hunting? Absolutely. It does not matter — response rates still go up. And, even if you try not to read the letter, the odds are good that you will get the main points.

Are you all excited by the endless vistas of opportunity that this short discussion has opened up? Or are you stifling a yawn as you wonder about the relevance of all this? It is big-time relevant to you.

The Internet
The greatest direct response medium ever devised — the best, the mostest, the most stunningly wonderful — is the Internet. It is the direct marketer’s dream. It is fast – blindingly so, even allowing for slow-as-treacle phone modems. It is immediate — you can interact with your prospects and customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. There are no space limitations — you can tell your story in as much detail as you want. It is cheap, cheap, cheap — if you have ever paid the postage for a mass mailing you will appreciate how important this is. It is interactive — you can tell different stories to different persons based on their unique differences. There is, in short, no end to the advantages of this marvelous creation.

And how do most companies use this superb answer to the marketer’s prayer? They go out of their way to make it as dull and meaningless as they possibly can. They put up Web sites with totally uninspired headings like, “About Us” and “Our Products” and “Contact Information”. They never even try to get a visitor to interact with them. BAH!

Those companies that do try to get some interaction going generally try to get the visitor to “log on” and hope to capture a name and email addresses. I frequently wonder why they bother, because they don’t have the foggiest notion of what they will do with it. Sometimes they promise a “free report” or some such thing if the visitor “registers.” The titles of these reports generally suck, and the entire experience may be preferable to a root canal, but not by much.

Give customers a good reason to keep coming to you. Let them play around on your Web site. It doesn’t cost you anything — or very little —and you are building up “share of mind.” Intrigue them. Make it fun. Give them priceless information. Don’t try a hard sell on your main site. If you want to try a hard sell, qualify your prospects and then direct them to a separate site set up just for this purpose.

How can you do this, and who is doing this? I thought you’d never ask.

Go to www.northwesternmutual.com. Northwestern Mutual is one of the largest insurance companies around, and one of the few that are still a mutual company. It has been ranked number one in the Fortune list of most admired companies in its industry for many, many years.

Its Web site has much to offer. Do you think you are an entrepreneur? You can take an online test to find out what kind of business you should be in. You can answer a short series of questions to find out how much insurance you really need. You can access a library with very detailed and sophisticated information on estate-planning strategies.

But the site – in my judgment – is only mediocre. They make you register and get an agent sponsor before you can access the detailed estate-planning library. They don’t tell you – before your register – what goodies they have in that library. No benefit-laden descriptions like, “How charitable remainder trusts make sure that your children get your money – not the IRS.” Lots of other problems as well, but more on that in a future column.

Poor as it is, though, this site is miles above most others. It does promise useful information in a factual, no-nonsense way. It gives you a good reason to stay, and it invites you to participate in a variety of ways. And Northwestern Mutual is still leveling its competitors. Of course its online strategy is only a small part of its success story, but it is an important part.

Think of how much more you can do with the marketing savvy you are gaining. Want to know more? Wait for my next column!

Srikumar S. Rao is Louis and Johanna Vorzimer Professor of Marketing at New York’s Long Island University. Write to him at rao@corp.siliconindia.com
si