Design for Response: Creative Direct Marketing That Works

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Summary: Create award-winning designs that get results!
Review: Based upon advance orders, Design for Response is already one of Rockport's best selling titles for 1999.

Create award-winning designs that increase customer loyalty and get results!

Direct marketing-from a simple postcard to an interactive e-mail-possesses an astonishing ability to get people to act in response to a message. But while anyone can send a message, it requires a special talent to elicit a response. Design for Response gathers together superb examples from a range of client needs and creative solutions to give marketers and designers a comprehensive, strategic understanding of why and how the best campaigns work.

Each chapter opens with a detailed case study followed by print and three-dimensional examples with a proven track record for producing results. Written in an insightful and informative style. Design for Response offers an indispensable introduction to all aspects of the direct mail world, including the inspirations and strategies behind award-winning direct marketing campaigns in their journey from idea to execution.

Design for Response takes a unique approach to direct marketing by focusing on the psychology of persuasion and the various design strategies and tactics that generate a tangible response from the recipient. All successful direct response advertising must generate an immediate tangible response, even an invitation to a gallery opening.

The book showcases the work of 37 international design firms through 7 case studies each supported by a gallery of approximately 20 examples. Educational sidebars call attention to key marketing and design features and the results of each.

Each chapter of Design for Response is focused on succeeding levels of emotional persuasion intended to motivate a customer, from building awareness through gathering information, to the ultimate challenge of making a purchase. Design for Response: by Leslie Sherr & David Katz

Introduction: Why Clients Need Persuasion Partners: by Tom Patty, president and worldwide Nissan account director, TBWA Chiat Day

Section I Proactive Marketing

Chapter 1 Increase Awareness: Eagle's Eye, "A New Perspective." Chapter 2 Build a Relationship: Ubu Gallery, "For Keeps."

Section II Reactive Marketing

Essay: Can We Talk?, by Martha Rogers, Ph.D. and Don Peppers, partners at Marketing 1 to 1/Peppers and Rogers Group, and authors of The One to One Future and Enterprise One to One.

Chapter 3 Tell Us About Yourself: Census 2000, "A Design You Can Count On." Chapter 4 Come for a Visit: Otis Elevator, "The Wright Stuff."

Section III Interactive Marketing

Chapter 5 Get with the Program: Art Center College of Design, "Head of the Class." Chapter 6 Send a Donation: DIFFA, "Fun Raising." Chapter 7 Make a Purchase: Ocean Catalog (UK), "Setting Sales."

LESLIE SHERR writes on architecture and design for a range of international publications. A former editor at Graphis, her work has appeared in U&lc, IDEA, Print, Communication Arts, and adobemag.com, among others. She is currently Director of Marketing for Slover [and] Company, a strategic design and brand image firm, she travels frequently to Europe and spent two years living in Provence where she worked at the Lacoste School of the Arts. Ms. Sherr graduated with a BFA from SUNY Purchase and studied architecture criticism at Parsons School of Design. She lives in New York City.

DAVID KATZ founded and managed several consumer product and direct response companies (including Martec, Pierre Cardin Luggage and The Graphyx Agency) and currently is a direct marketing and E-commerce consultant. A contributing editor to DM News, DRTV, New York New Media, and Potentials in Marketing, he is a graduate of Tufts University and the Harvard Business School. He also appears behind and in-front of the cameras for all three major TV shopping networks. His next book will be The Shopping Gene: the epigenetic basis for consumer behavior.

From Chapter 2: For Keeps-UBU Gallery:

"What sort of gallery bent on producing shows dedicated to the avant-garde art of this century would send out invitations that are as surprising and covetable as anything they might exhibit, would send out small works of art? The answer, in two words, is UBU Gallery, which at its offbeat location on Manhattan's upper east side demonstrates that it is no less committed to disruption than it is to selling paintings and sculptures. The invitations display an attribute rare in both art and design: a willingness to forgo the hand of the designer for the sake of a concept which, here, is the poignancy of the artwork itself...

Building a relationship is widely, and erroneously, considered to be an intangible objective or measurement. Respondents to these invitations were unlikely to open their mail, read the piece, throw on their coats and head over to the gallery. Although the response to these invitations is more subtle and qualitative, it is, nonetheless, tangible. All successful direct mail must generate an immediate tangible response; a delay decreases the rate of success. The nature of these pieces initiate and sustain an unspoken dynamic between the reader, the piece, and the gallery.

The response is tangible in a several ways; retention (the extent to which something is kept), recency (shortening the time span between the recipient's visits), frequency (increasing the total number of visits to the gallery the recipient will make).

Involvement tactics come into play at a couple of levels. The use of a hidden message creates a conceptual involvement that engages the viewer for greater study. Several of the invitation pieces require assembly, eliciting a tangible response and taking the degree of involvement to an active level of physical participation. Ultimately, these tactics move the recipient from involvement to participation and then to commitment-the foundation of a rewarding relationship."

Rating:
Summary: Wow, a new idea in direct marketing literature!
Review: Finally a book on direct marketing that is NOT just a biography, a self-promotion, or "Mail Order for Dummies." This book actually uses several interesting examples of direct mail to illustrate the psychology of persuasion vis-a-vis design and marketing tactics. Thank you Sherr & Katz.

Rating:
Summary: useful book, filled with applications for all DM'ers
Review: I liked this book for its gallery sections, over 200 photographs of great DM examples that spark new ideas and methods of execution. The chapters and discussions are well described and give many references and referals I found useful. I particularly liked the discussion of The new Census 2000 Form and the very clever Otis Elevator campaign based upon a Frank Lloyd Wright letter.

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Summary: This book earned money for me, WOW!
Review: It was directly based upon an inspiration generated from this book, Design for Response, that I sold my latest design project. There are many great examples in this book that have kept me thinking of new projects.

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Summary: Not just "how" but "WHY" direct marketing works!
Review: Leslie writes on design and communication and my profession is direct marketing (our biographies can be found at the end of these notes). We felt that the existing books and literature on direct marketing design were either "how to" books on direct mail basics or compendiums of examples without explanations (with a few autobiographies to round off the list.) Our interests, and those of our respective clients, involve an understanding of the strategies and tactics of persuasion. Design for Response illustrates the elements of persuasion that lead seven direct marketers to achieve remarkable results. We believe this book will help you to achieve remarkable results too.

Most direct marketing books deal with the "how" or the "what." Design for Response takes this "communication" one step farther by focusing on the "why." It focuses on the benefit and the relevance of direct marketing to the personal needs (both conscious and unconscious) of the audience.

We hope our book helps you to understand the dynamics behind direct marketing response rates, and therefor to improve your own results. We also welcome your comments and suggestions...

LESLIE SHERR writes on architecture and design for a range of international publications. A former editor at Graphis, her work has appeared in U&lc, IDEA, Print, Communication Arts, and adobemag.com, among others. She is currently Director of Marketing for Slover [and] Company, a strategic design and brand image firm, she travels frequently to Europe and spent two years living in Provence where she worked at the Lacoste School of the Arts. Ms. Sherr graduated with a BFA from SUNY Purchase and studied architecture criticism at Parsons School of Design. She lives in New York City.

DAVID KATZ [e-mail] founded and managed several consumer product and direct response companies (including Martec, Pierre Cardin Luggage and The Graphyx Agency) and currently is a direct marketing and E-commerce consultant. A contributing editor to DM News, DRTV, New York New Media, and Potentials in Marketing, he is a graduate of Tufts University and the Harvard Business School. He also appears behind and in-front of the cameras for all three major TV shopping networks. His next book will be The Shopping Gene: the epigenetic basis for consumer behavior.

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Summary: Best book on direct marketing!
Review: Loved this book. I bought this book after seeing David Katz lecture... His writing style is just as good as seeing him in person! Informative, great examples, persuaded me to create even better direct mail...

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Summary: Great book for anyone that is involved with direct mail!
Review: This book has some great examples of direct marketing that I had never encountered anywhere else, and I have been in the industry for over 20 years...

What I found particularly interesting were the author's comments on each piece, and the detailed case-studies that are the foundation for each chapter.

The case-studies discuss the psychological basis for the responses generated as well as an in-depth illustration of the design elements.

I highly recommend this book.