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Second Impression!

© Hunter

We have gotten passed the first impression. Now you have the second impression to worry about.

The cruel reality is that, in direct mail, you can lose your audience at any time, as they peruse their mail pieces. We are assuming now that your mail piece passed the first impression and your mail piece is going to be opened.

The basic appearance and tone of your message should be driven by the carrier piece you have designed. This is assuming that you can prepare an effective copy.

A letter accompanying an "official message" carrier should be printed on impressive campaign letterhead with body copy styled in block paragraphs.

If you are going to use the telegram idea, then all the words will be in an all-capitals style and should be printed on yellow paper. If you have ever seen a real telegram, you will note that it should be written with as few prepositions and possible. An example of this would be: SEND MONEY FAST -STOP- NEED YOUR HELP TO PRINT ADS! You can also add a handwritten message to the bottom to personalize it.

No matter what your inside piece looks like, always be aware of how approachable it is at it's first impression. You can use bolding, italics or handwriting type scripts in the margins or in the text itself to break up the message, expecially if your message is lengthy. But think to yourself: would I sit down and read this if I received it in the mail?

You also have to ask yourself, can a reader that just skims the subhead get the gist of your message? Do the page breaks keep the reader's eyes moving on in the text? Is this piece of text too long? White space is a good thing.

And what about a P.S.? One thing to remember is that most readers will go first to the letter's P.S. before they read the body of text. This then makes this a great place to put an important message or key point of the mailing.

As you write your own copy or proofread what someone else has written for you, alway ask yourself what your first reaction would be to its appearance. Your instincts are all you have to go on, so trust them.

A quick response from the recipient of your mailing piece is what you are looking for, whether it is to send money, or volunteer to assist you in some fashion.

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