Do you know what direct marketing experts and copywriters call headlines?  They say that the headline is the “Ad for the Ad”.  In other words, the headline is what sells the consumer on reading the direct mail piece or newspaper Ad or whatever form your advertisement takes.  Or at least it’s what sells them on starting to read the piece.  After they start, you have to get them  to continue.  You do that by placing subheads throughout your piece.

Can you imagine anyone picking up the newspaper on July 21st, 1969, seeing the headline above and not reading the article?  Creating that compelling urge to read the rest of the ad is what you want to accomplish with your headline.  Ever wonder why some of the direct mail pieces you do constantly pull in more appointments than others?  Part of the reason is the headline.  I’ll give you a perfect example.

Look at the Helen Keller Letter and VO Invite down below.  What are the headlines on these pieces?  On the VO Invite it’s “You may not have a hearing problem.  It could be excess earwax.  See for yourself with a FREE Video Otoscope Inspection of your ears”.  And on the Helen Keller letter it’s “Hearing loss or just earwax? Find out now using a tiny video camera. FREE Video Otoscope Ear Inspection”.

These two pieces have been consistently effective year after year.  I believe there are a few reason for that.

   1. When the consumer reads these headlines, the words match the conversation already going on in their head.  They’re thinking “maybe I don’t have a hearing problem. Maybe it’s something simple.  Hey look here, maybe it’s earwax.  I knew it”.
   2. These headlines answer the all important question of “what’s in it for me?”  That’s what goes through every consumer’s head when he or she starts reading an advertisement.  “Why should I waste my time reading this?”  So your headline needs to be very self-serving for the consumer.
   3. These headlines offer the biggest benefit you can offer to the consumer.  They offer peace of mind.  You are promising to help the consumer determine what the cause of their hearing difficulties may or may not be.
   4. The word FREE is still one of the most powerful words in advertising.  You are offering a service free that would otherwise cost them something. At minimum it would cost them a copay at the ENT’s office wouldn’t it?  You are offering it free and you are offering it NOW.

OK, so if this is new to you (and I realize that it may or may not be), what do you do with this newly acquired knowledge?  Simple – test new headlines and test the ads you’re now running by changing the headlines slightly from time to time, always trying to increase response or improve upon the quality of the lead or both.  This of course assumes that you are tracking your response carefully.  As an aside, we’re about the launch FSDMine 2.0.  We have improved the lead capturing, response tracking and reporting features in version 2.0 to make it easier for you to analyze your advertising results.  You can find out more about this by going to www.fsdmine.com or contacting Tressa at 1-800-445-6399 x103 or tressa@fsmarketing.net.

Oh yeah, before I go.  Headlines can also be used on the envelope.  It’s called teaser copy.  The objective is to get the reader to open the envelope and read the the letter inside which start with… you guessed it … a headline.  So in effect, teaser copy is the Ad for the Ad for the Ad.  Here’s some teaser copy we’re testing on a new envelope mailer in early June.

__________________________________________________________

What does …

<First Name> <Last Name>

<Address>

<City>, <ST> <Zip>

… have in common with Arnold Palmer, Buzz Aldrin, Lou Ferrigno, and Bobby Unser?

__________________________________________________________

I’ll keep you posted.

Regards,

Phil Stocchetti

P.S. If you’d like to talk more about headlines or marketing in general, please stop by the FS Marketing booth during the Expo at the Miracle-Ear Convention in San Antonio, TX on Thursday June 5th.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Greetings!

I read an interesting article recently in the April edition of AARP Bulletin. Yes, I am a member of AARP. But just in case you’re wondering – no I’m not over 55 years old. I’m actually 46 years old. So, I told AARP the truth in advance by about 9 years so I’d receive their mailings and publications.

Whether you’re 55+ or not, I hope that as a provider of products and services to mature consumers you also are on the mailings lists of AARP and other organizations that speak to the same audience as you. I believe it’s very important to watch what other marketers who cater to the same market are doing. Watch for the ads they run repeatedly. They’re making money with those ads. Your challenge is to figure out how to apply the tactics they’re using in their ads to the hearing aid industry. Some will work and some won’t. Depends on whether the product or service being sold in the original ad has generally similar characteristics to hearing aids. Health related products being a good match, cars not so much.

Anyhow, back to the question at hand. Have you asked yourself whether it’s time to look to cyberspace for leads? Up till recently, my response would’ve been “why what’s the point. Not many older consumers are online as far as I’ve heard”. After reading the AARP article as well as a few others on the subject, I’m not so sure about that anymore. By the way, you can read it in it’s entirety by clicking here. The next three paragraphs summarize what I thought was interesting from the AARP article.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 72% of Americans age 50 to 64 and 37% of Americans 65+ use the internet. What are they doing online? They’re communicating with their children and grandchildren, tracking their investments, looking for golf tips, researching travel destinations and socializing. Yes socializing.

Online social networks are starting to replace social networks that have been around for centuries such as the Elks, Moose, Lions Clubs, Rotary, Kiwanis and thousands of industry specific organizations. For the younger generation, sites like www.MySpace.com or www.facebook.com have become quite popular.

Social networking sites are popping up specifically for the senior niche too. Sites like www.eons.com, www.Rezoom.com , www.Boomj.com and www.Boomertown.com. These sites offer discussion and dating forums, photo-sharing, news and commentary, and copious chatter about diet, fitness and health care. That’s right “health care”. Hmm, I wonder whether they ever talk about problems they’re having with their hearing. Well what if they do? What’s that got to do with you? How do you go about using social networking sites to sell more of your products and services?

Well, first thing is – you have to be a member of these sites and be involved in the network. Use the social network to start a dialogue with community members. Offer your expertise. Help them answer questions about their hearing difficulties. Be careful not to stray into areas for which you are not qualified, but offer what you know and do it from the heart. Share stories and experiences. Let people get comfortable with you. You’re really building your brand. And it’s not costing you a whole lot more than time.

What you’re also doing is utilizing the best marketing strategy ever conceived by mankind – word of mouth. You can try to persuade consumers all day long that you’re a good person offering a good product or service. But, many of them will always be skeptical. If enough other people tell them that you’re a good person and you’ve helped them with a problem or that your product is excellent and they love it – now that’s another story. Skepticism melts away like an ice cream cone on Miami Beach in August.

In all honesty, this stuff is new to me too. There’s a lot to learn. I thought I’d share some insights with you on the things I’ve learned by participating in a few social networking sites myself and from my research into the subject. Give it a try. And please, let me know what you learn. Who knows, maybe you’ll see a social networking site built for FS Marketing clients soon.

Regards,

Phil F. Stocchetti

“Do you know this guy? Is he one of your patients?”

Who is it that you’re fitting with hearing aids? This question struck me a couple of days ago. Do we really know who we should be targeting with our advertising messages? In order to know who we should be targeting, we need to have a real clear picture of who we’re currently selling hearing aids to. Who are these people?

How old are they?Are they married? Widowed? Never Married?Are they still working? Full time? Part-time?How much income do they generate?Are they retired?Do they own a home or rent now?Do most of them have a considerable amount of savings stashed away?Do they have adult children? Grand children?What do they like to do? Golf? Bowl? Bingo? Travel?What bothers them most about their hearing loss?What holds them back from purchasing hearing aids?What do they think about wearing hearing aids?What do they think about the cost of hearing aids?If they currently wear hearing aids, what do they think about them?Are they in pretty good physical shape or do they often mention other ailments that are bothering them: poor eyesight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol?You get the general idea, right? The more focused we make the picture of who our current customers are, the better we can get at reaching similar individuals with a message that means something to them. In other words, we can cut through the clutter of advertising messages that they are bombarded with each day and speak to them as someone who understands their needs and concerns.Why do this? The answer is simple. Survival.When it comes to targeting, we’re currently painting with really wide strokes. Think about it for a minute. When it comes to the mailings we do to the public (the mailing that you spend most of your advertising budget on), all we’re really doing is choosing a list based on age and estimated income. Age for obvious reasons and income to try to eliminate consumers who probably can’t afford hearing aids. Let’s look at the age thing for a minute. Research tells us that 1 out of 3 people over the age of 65 have a hearing loss that is severe enough to be helped with hearing aids. Further research shows that 1 out of 5 people with hearing loss buy hearing aids.That means that when we mail 1000 direct mail advertising pieces, only 333 of the recipients even have a need for hearing aids. And, only 67 of them either already wear hearing aids or will wear hearing aids sometime in the near future. What we’ve done over the years by targeting consumers based on their age and income is not wrong. It’s the only method we have been able to effectively use on a consistent basis. Problem is that it’s no longer working as well as it used to. To make my point, I’m going to quote you some general response rates now. (Be advised that your response rates may vary based on numerous factors, none of which have to do with the mailing itself.) Having said that, generally speaking here are the response rates (in ranges) as reported by our clients:

Free Gift Card Self-Mailer	4 – 8 appts per 1000
Personal Health Notice	3 – 4 appts per 1000
Helen Keller Letter Package	3 – 4 appts per 1000
VO/Live Speech Map Invites	3 – 4 appts per 1000
8.5″ x 14″ Check Mailer	2 – 3 appts per 1000
Blue Snap Pack VO w/check	2 -3 appts per 1000
Price Point/Discount DM	.5 – 1 appt per 1000

So what’s the point of all this. We need a plan. Here’s what I propose we do:

1. Get much better at targeting consumers to whom we mail your advertising message.
2. Craft a much more effective message by speaking directly to the consumers needs, wants and concerns.
3. Follow up consistently with all consumers you come in contact with whether they bought or didn’t buy. Whether they showed up for their hearing test or didn’t show. I’m talking about database marketing.

To get started, I need your help. As you probably realize, I don’t often have the opportunity to sit in front of patients with hearing loss. I have on many occasions in the past sat in on hearing tests. And, over the years, I’ve had reason to be examined by ENTs, Audiologists and Hearing Consultants on many occasions. I’ve even had impressions done of my ear canals. But that all pales in comparison to sitting in front of consumers with hearing loss day in and day out listening to their needs, wants and concerns. So, I need your help and the help of your consultants.

To quote Jerry Maquire… “Help me… help you.” Email me back or ask your consultants to email me as short or as long a description as you like of who your patients are. If you’d like, simply answer some the questions listed above. My email address is phil@fsmarketing.net. Or, you (or they) can simply leave a comment below.

“How To Get Your Advertising On The Right Track”

1. Find out how many rental list records I can mail to for each of my stores based on my store zip code footprints.
2. Budget 15% of my projected sales for advertising.
3. Pick two direct mail pieces – one with the main theme being a free VO exam, the other having something else as it’s main theme – like the Field Trial piece.
4. Figure out what the cost per thousand is going to be for those two pieces.
5. Determine how many of each piece I can do each week by dividing the cost per 1000 into the budget for the store.
6. Divide the number of pieces you can do each week into the total records available to determine how many weeks it will take to mail each of the two pieces you’ve chosen every record.
7. At the end of the cycle, choose two more pieces as you did in step #3 and cycle through them.
8. Repeat the process until there are no more new pieces to do, then go back to the first two pieces you did.

Special Sale Discount Promotions:

1. Find out when AmplifonUSA is running their $495, $795 or 2 For $990 promotions.
2. Two to three times a year, take advantage of those promotions (and the TV advertising that goes along with them) by budgeting 50% of your marketing dollars in those months to be spent on these promotions.
3. Use the other 50% of your budget to continue with the Main Rotations.

Leads Capture Follow-Up:

1. Capture every lead that your stores are currently coming in contact with. Anyone who calls in or walks-in regardless of whether they set an appointment. Everyone who sets an appointment and doesn’t show or cancels.
2. Put those leads into your marketing funnel (FS Datamine), making sure they they receive follow-up communications including a monthly newsletter.
3. Constantly clean your database, getting rid of unmailable records.
4. Constantly figure out ways to generate new leads, test these methods, implement the ones that work.

Database Marketing:

1. Start using FS Datamine to follow-up on all consumers who buy, don’t buy, wear Miracle-Ear hearing aids on which the warranty is about to expire, become In-Active User, so on and so forth.
2. Send a monthly newsletter to all Miracle-Ear Users, Competitors’Users and Prospects.
3. Constantly clean this database

So there you have it. Scout’s Honor, if I was selling hearing aids, that’s what I would do. Having said that, I would not hesitate to change course as new information presented itself. And, I’d always be looking for new strategies and tactics for generating leads, converting them to appointments, closing sales. Some areas that may hold promise are public relations, your own local website, local TV for lead generation. More on these next time.

Special Announcement

Beginning in April we will be transitioning over to using a new print and mail vendor. This new vendor has much more capacity. They processes over 9 million piece of mail each day. And, there are over 900 employees operating out of two huge plants that are just a few miles apart inHartford, CT. More sophisticated technology will be availabe to us. Here are just a few of the many advantages this move will provide for you:

1. We will now have a new process for drop shipping your mail. We will be drop shipping 95% of all our 3rd Class (Standard) mail from now on at NO Charge to you. With the volume of mail done by the new facility we’re using, they’re trucking mail all over the country each and every day. We’ll be able to take advantage of that and no longer charge you $68/m to drop ship your mail. You can use the savings to increase the number of pieces you do and thereby increase the number of appointments you get from the same investment.
2. We will be adding Planet Codes to all of our mail from now on. Planet codes are basically tracking codes. We will be proactively tracking all our mail and make calls to USPS facilities if and when we see that any of the mail is not moving. We will also have access to a web based system which enables us to pull up maps that show exactly where your mail was last scanned by the Post Office.
3. We will be implementing a new proofing process that should eliminate about 80% of the proofs and time you now spend proofing your FS orders. We will be using a new system that will allow us to review, modify and approve proofs online. We also intend to take it a step further by putting a process in place that will enable you to update and approve your store data either online or via email or fax. Your proofing activities can be limited to reviewing data instead of looking at each and every version of every direct mail piece you order. If you find that you would like to continue to proof each and every version of your mailings, we will make the web proofing system available for you. This will be much more efficient than our current system.

*Postage Increase*

The US Postal Service is raising the cost of postage on May 12th. Our rates will increase approximately 3%. I assume that most if not all of your mailings will be out by May 12th. In the event that you are doing a late mailing in May, your invoice will reflect the 3% increase for any mailing done on May 12th or later.

First In-Home Date: April 2nd

You may be wondering why I waited so long to get this email out to you. Let me explain. Last week we heard that the theme of the Miracle-Ear national promotion for April is going to be something to the effect of “It’s our 60th Anniversary and in order to celebrate we’re offering Buy 1 Get 1 60% Off”.

Problem is that as far as I know none of the Miracle-Ear store owners we work with have received the direct mail piece created by corporate or details on the wholesale discount. So we’ve been waiting. Finally today we heard that it’s going to be a self-mailer of some type with a birthday cake on it.So here’s the deal. We’ll be happy to do the Miracle-Ear national piece for you. Or, you can use the piece you see below. We just created this piece today as an alternative to the corporate piece (whatever it turns out to be). As a result, it hasn’t been tested. I’m not sure that the Miracle-Ear piece has been tested either, by the way. You’d have to ask them. Here’s another way of looking at it. Your risk is not very high if you try our piece because it only has to get 1 appointment per 1000 to beat the average response of any of the price point pieces being done lately.

The choice is yours. Just remember – we’re running out of time. Our deadline is next Friday February 8th. In addition to the Anniversary piece, Miracle-Ear has also sent out two letters that seem to be a combination of Scott Beall’s Anniversary letter and a letter used during the Dan Kennedy Lead Generation test campaign. There are two versions – one to be mailed to Miracle-Ear Users, the other to be mailed to “new prospects”. If you don’t have “new prospects”, which most store owners don’t since they’re not conducting lead generation campaigns on a regular basis, then I suppose you could try the letter to “Suspects” – meaning a senior rental list. We’ll be happy to do either of these mailings for you also. If you’re on FS Datamine, it will be quite simple for us to generate your User list. If you’re not on FS Datamine, you’ll have to send us your User list. (By the way, this might not be a bad time to consider using FS Datamine. We’re about to roll out version two.