Two ways in which a campfire relates to direct marketing

Last night I invited a few neighbors over to discuss a first-ever block party for our development. I put a fire in my new fire pit so while we talked, the kids could roast marshmallows for s'mores and the adults could watch while we discussed ideas and plans for this party.

Long after the last red-hot embers turned to tan-colored ash, two things about last night made me think of direct marketing. The first was the way the wonderful smell of campfire smoke still still followed me around. The second was about our conversation of getting support for this party.

A great direct marketing campaign not only has all the mechanical elements such as headline, offer, expiration date, an image and messaging, but it also hits home with an emotional response. Seeing those kids, some of whom have never been near a campfire and the adults who felt like kids again made it clear that campfires create a positive emotional response. In your next campaign, try taking your audience back, waaay back, to a simpler time in their lives when they were kids and associate your brand with something they love about their own time growing up. It's something that will follow them around like the aroma of campfire smoke long after your direct mail piece comes and goes.

Direct marketing is all about the numbers, and so is life. During our conversation, we knew that we would need full support of our community to make the block party happen, so we had to think like direct marketers. We had to calculate the numbers for all the households in our block, and the number it would take to get sufficient momentum for the next planning steps. Unlike the acceptable two percent response rate typical in our industry, we're shooting for an ambitious fifty-plus percent! That will take a seriously targeted, multi-channel, multiple-touch campaign in order to reach that goal. But like a good direct marketer, I'm up for the challenge of blowing away acceptable numbers with a great results!