	Article Directory		Article Submission Service		Article Marketing Blog		Publishers		Member Log In

Article Directory :: Business - General Articles

Direct Mail Design - 10 Secrets for Better Results

By Jonathan McCulloch

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 09Mar2012
Word count: 2643
Viewed: 118 time(s)

Get Free Content For Your Site

Direct mail design is easily as important as the copy in the mailing piece if not actually more important. The reason is simple: you can't make money from your ads or other marketing pieces unless someone responds to them. And a direct response ad or other marketing piece can not be responded to unless the people in your target market actually read it.

And the two things stopping your marketing pieces getting read are bad copy and bad design.

Now, there's a good chance if you're reading this you've been researching direct response marketing and so you've probably become aware the content of your ads has to be written a certain way.

In other words, you have to stick to formulae like the AIDA formula and have a headline, persuasive body copy and a clear and unambiguous call to action.

But what you might not know yet is bad design can kill your ad even before anyone even starts reading it and stop them dead in their tracks even if they do.

So what I'm going to share with you now are some very simple design guidelines you can simply copy in your own direct mail advertising pieces and see much improved results.

Although I do warn you: your graphic designer or creative marketing people will hate everything I have written here. That's OK, because I didn't just make these things up.

It's all based on peer-reviewed research which is recounted in excruciating detail in Colin Weildon's Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes.

What I present here is simply a list of his conclusions without all the detailed commentary and statistics.

Layout Ideas

1. Put your headline across the top, covering the left two-thirds of the page. The right-hand third can contain an image in the top-right corner. An image of a human face is good -- and always use a caption.

2. If you are going to have an image full-width across the page, put it at the very top, even above the headline.

3. Another image in the bottom left corner is good, too. This is a "fallow corner" and copy written here is often skimmed over. An image, however, will naturally pull the eye.

4. Your call to action or the 'please turn to next page' tag needs to go in the bottom right corner.

5. Avoid fancy backgrounds. Use plain, light-coloured backgrounds. White is fine, ivory or light gray perhaps even better. Avoid light text on dark backgrounds, especially for large blocks of copy.

Typography Ideas

1. Headlines can be either in serif or sans-serif fonts. Avoid the elegant fonts so beloved of graphic designers. Experiment with different colors, but be aware bright colors can distract readers from the rest of the copy. Dark reds and blues are good choices.

2. Don't use all caps. This is very hard to read. Either capitalize the first letter of every word, or just write them like a normal sentence. THEY ARE HARD TO READ!

3. Body copy should be in a serif font for print (e.g. Times, Caslon, Corona) and a sans-serif font for on-screen reading (e.g. Arial, Helvetica)

4. Indent the first line of every paragraph and have your margins fully justified.

5. Ideal font size is 11pt with a 13pt leading. Keep line-lengths to between 20 and 60 characters. This may mean you have to use two or three columns. This is fine.

So there you have it: ten very simple direct mail design tips you can copy right away and start seeing improved results immediately.

They apply not just to your print media, but also to online media like web-pages.

Obviously you need to test, test and then test some more but it makes sense to start from a place where science tells us you're much more likely to get results.

Jon McCulloch is perhaps Europe's top direct mail marketer. Visit his website now and swipe just 3 of his 52 FREE small business promotion tips he's giving away now, and actually put them to work for you and you'll be amazed by the results. They've all generated dramatically improved profits for small businesses just like yours over the past two years.

EasyPublish™ this article - publishers click here