… one traditional direct mail rule that holds true, whether you’re sending an email or a traditional snail mail campaign.

How many online marketers have taken it on board? Very few. Most email campaigns are nothing more than online leaflets. As any seasoned direct marketer will tell you, you can be much cleverer than that.

A graphics-only approach ignores the most fundamental direct response marketing truth: whatever your medium, the personal touch is worth its weight in gold.

• send a colour e-leaflet on its own if you like, but response will be poor
• a personalised letter (stuff like ’Dear Dave’ rather than ‘Dear Customer’) accompanied by an e-leaflet will pull much better 
• if you’re forced to choose, ditch the colour brochure in favour of a letter
• if you’re desperate for colour, combine the two. Create a letter that includes unintrusive images

If you like re-inventing the wheel, test each approach using the ‘leaflet only’ email as your control.

If you want to sell stuff, don’t waste time being arty.

Are you planning to use images in your advert?

Key US research proved twenty years ago that the most successful campaigns – with the biggest returns on investment – contain images that:

• attract the right target audience
• help describe the product or service in visual terms
• boost the sales message’s strength and heighten its impact
• enable key extra details to be communicated without words
• support the marketing messages, giving extra commercial power
• get the message across instantly, saving people time and effort

OK, the research was carried out two decades ago. But think how less crowded communications were then. No internet. No mobile ‘phones…  Today, people are busier than ever. These days you really can’t afford to play hide and seek or do a Damien Hurst with your direct response marketing.

Being mysterious and ‘creative’ doesn’t improve response and conversion rates. Quite the opposite. The advert pictured is a good example of a bad offender. Take away the words and this strange lady could be advertising flash mobbing, contemporary dance, tights, vitamin pills… I doubt your first instinctive thought was ’processors’!

If you want to make proper money from your marketing, stick to images that really do speak louder than the words you need to say. Exercise restraint, my friends.