Test Scenarios

Everybody who works with direct marketing knows that that God is in testing the campaigns. For one reason or the other, however, very few actually get it done. The way you test may for instance be to elaborate varying mailings, which only diversifies on one point, and then ascertain what the difference of response is.

Is there any difference between sending the mailing in a C4 envelope or in a C5 envelope?
What significance may illustrations on the envelope have?
Should people receive a gift for answering? Which gift has the best effect?
Should we be sending out reminders to people who did not answer?
Which reply coupon has the best effect?
Etc., etc., etc.

The correct answers to the questions above can actually increase your response with at least 10 %.

On the other hand, we strongly advise our clients against testing their campaigns at a traditional analysis bureau. Purely and simply as the group interviews often are a 100 % completely contradictory to what works if you send the material out yourself. You should definitely use analyses bureaus for message understanding, areas of interest etc., but not in order to ascertain whether your execution works or not.