The February 2010 issue of our ‘Sample of the Month’ direct mail case study features our client YES! Magazine and their evolution from a free trial offer self-mailer to a new and improved hard offer version.

Both self-mailers are 4 color over 4 color and roll fold to a closed dimension of 4.5″ wide by 7″ high. The free trial offer is 1 free issue and then 1 year (4 quarterly issues) for $17. The hard offer version is 4 quarterly issues and “An EXTRA Issue FREE” for $15. Hard offer means there is no free issue up front — you send payment with order.

  CLICK HERE For Pictures of Both Self-Mailers.

Summary

YES! Magazine’s long-standing control was a roll fold self-mailer that promoted a free trial issue. They wanted to switch over to a hard offer to reduce the amount of money and staff time spent fulfilling the free trial offers and billing them.

Sharon Booth, Circulation Design Manager at YES!, worked with Ballantine to enhance their self-mailer to enable payment with order by incorporating a reply envelope. YES! Creative Director, Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn, also completely redesigned the piece to better match YES!’s current brand.

Strategy

YES! Magazine’s strategy was to convert their self-mailer control from a free trial offer to a hard offer. The free trial version used a perfed reply card that got mailed back. In order to make the hard offer version work, an integrated, perfed return envelope was added to collect payment. The hard offer self-mailer was also enhanced with new creative that used celebrity testimonials.

Results

According to Rod Arakaki, Audience Development Director at YES!, the hard offer version resulted in a 7% drop in net response — they also lowered the price from $17/year to $15/year — both of which reduced their revenue. However, the cost savings from the elimination of non-paying free trial issues, sometimes called “bad debt copies,” and billing more than made up for those decreases. To be specific, it cost 18% less to acquire a customer with the hard offer self-mailer.

Benefits

Besides the lower costs, YES! experienced other benefits from switching to a hard offer. First, their fulfillment team is much more efficient without having to process the large number of free trial issue requests (typically 3X the number of paid subs you end up with), and send the free trial issues and bills. Second, by putting a discrete URL on the reply card, about 15% of responses now come via their website. They process these orders more efficiently and they all come with email addresses.

Lastly, while placing website orders, a surprising number are enticed by the multi-year subscription. One warning, though: YES! tested making a stronger push to order online — including offering a slight discount — but it depressed the paper responses too much.

Samples

Do you want a sample of this self-mailer? Email your address to ryan@ballantine.com. Supplies are very limited.

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The January 2010 issue of our ‘Sample of the Month’ direct mail case study features our client American Craft Council and their test of new outer envelope creative for their #10 control package.

American Craft Council worked with ProCirc, their circulation management partner, to execute this test with Ballantine handling the printing and mailing portion of the project. Sage Communications handled the copy & design.

Both #10 packages (control and test) contained the same exact 5 components: 2-page letter with perfed reply card, 2-panel brochure, buckslip and BRE. The offer for both was a 1-year subscription to American Craft magazine for $20.

   CLICK HERE for pictures of the #10 control and test.

Test Summary

American Craft Council’s control package was a #10 package with a plain, double-window outer envelope. One window carried the address block and the other window showed a personalized membership card.

In January of 2009, they tested this against a #10 package with the same exact components, but a completely different outer.

The OE had the address block imaged on the back and only one window on the front. This one window showed the personalized membership card and blended in with the creative. View pictures here.

Test Strategy

The strategy with the test was to add more impact to the outer envelope’s design and, more specifically, to make the OE creative work together with the window placement for greater effect. The design was created so it looks like two hands are giving the membership card to the recipient.

Test Results

The small initial test panel included in the January 2009 campaign had a 64% increase over the control verification panel! American Craft Council rolled out to the new package in their next campaign six months later. With the much larger rollout quantity, it still captured an impressive 36% increase in net response over the previous control. The “two hands” package is now the current control and Ballantine just mailed a 3rd campaign one week ago.

Questions & Comments

If you have any questions or comments, please leave your message below. You can also email Ryan Cote by clicking here.

The November 2009 issue of our ‘Sample of the Month’ direct mail case study features our client Tricycle Magazine and their test of a triple postcard with tipped-in BRE versus a standard multi-component #10 control package.

Tricycle worked with Next Steps Marketing, their circulation marketing services partner, to execute this test with Ballantine handling the printing and mailing portion of the project.

The triple postcard with tipped-in BRE measures 7″ wide by 5″ high and the back panel carrying the address also has a full block of imaged copy. The #10 control package contains 5 components: 4-page letter, reply card, brochure, buckslip and BRE.

  CLICK HERE for pictures of the triple postcard and #10.

For this case study newsletter, we asked Mike Popalardo, Principal at Next Steps Marketing, the following questions…

How did the triple postcard w/ BRE perform overall and how did it perform versus the #10 control package?

The TPC did not perform nearly as well on the gross response. Comparing this test panel of 10K against the same mailing quantity and list configuration for the control piece (verification panel), data shows the upfront response was about 22% less — this carried through to the net response which showed a decrease of about 20%. However, the package excelled in overall pay-up, out-performing the #10 control package by 4% points and the cash with order was higher as well. We received 18% more cash with the TPC than we did with the #10 package. Obviously, this means less bills needed to be sent.

What was the circulation marketing strategy behind the triple postcard?

The idea was to present a format in the market that was substantially different from anything Tricycle had mailed in the past. The list universe is relatively stable and it’s likely we might be seeing some package fatigue in the market. Additionally, if the test were to win, the personalized addressing block would also allow us to more easily segment out various lists and communicate with those groups in a more direct manner (eg — expires might receive a special “welcome back” appeal.) Finally, since double postcards are notoriously soft in backend pay-up we believed that a 3 panel card would provide more real estate to promote and the inclusion of a BRE would allow for a greater degree of paid with order.

Now that the test campaign’s results are finalized, what are your plans for the next mailing?

We have not finalized plans for our next test. Given the strength of pay-up and cash with order Tricycle may consider retesting the TPC format with a different appeal from the “Calm Your Mind” approach we took with this effort. Using this format with a more traditional appeal may restore the gross response. Another test we might consider is softening slightly the payment request to see if we can increase gross response.

What lessons did you learn from this mailing or what surprised you the most about the mailing?

We had hoped that the TPC format would be seen as less “daunting” to the recipient and that the new format would spur people who had received earlier mailings from Tricycle to take action in larger numbers. Unfortunately, we did not see the lift in gross response we had hoped to see but we believe this may be attributable to the appeal (a #10 version of this appeal did not lift response either) rather than a function of the format. We were pleasantly surprised by the cash with order and overall pay-up.

Want samples and pricing? Email Ryan: ryan@ballantine.com