It's easy to see why. If you were selling sheet music, you probably wouldn't make a lot of money offering your products to people who don't play a musical instrument. However, you could make a lot of money by knowing precisely which musicians are most likely to buy your products.  Are they guitarists or keyboard artists?  Do they play in a rock band, jazz ensemble or classical orchestra?

The only way to know the answer is to test. Test your in-house mailing list.  Test links that you rent from mailing-list brokers.  Here's how: Ask a mailing-list broker about renting a few thousand names from each of two or more mailing lists. (You can find list brokers among the authorized Direct Mail merchants at www.usps.com/directmail.)  Then send the exact same mailing (except for the codes) to the different lists.  The list that generates the most responses is your winner.

2 The Offer

The offer is the inducement to respond immediately to your mailing.  This is very important to test because it is almost impossible to predict what offer will get the best results.

There's a story in direct marketing lore about a department store that tested two offers in credit card solicitations. One mailing offered 10% off on the first purchase with the new card, up to $50.  The other mailing offered a free Teddy Bear, worth about $3.  Surprisingly, the Teddy Bear won the test. Who would have predicated that?

Test discounts.  Test free gifts. Test free samples. And don't forget to test pricing.  Direct marketing professionals also tell stories about products that nobody would buy for $4.00, but sold out at $12.00.

3 The Creative

Creative is the most fruitful area to test.  You can test a humorous approach versus a serious approach.  Or flashy designs versus simple pictures.  You never know what will get the most response. Professional direct markers all have stories about simple word changes that produced astronomical results.

While you're testing creative, test formats.  If you mail letters, see if adding a brochure gets you more responses.  Also, see if the extra responses cover the cost of adding the brochure. Or try sending a less expensive mailing.  Maybe there will be no drop-off in response and you can build sales more cost-effectively.

Keep trying new approaches. You never know what kind of art, copy or appeal will work best.

Evaluating Results

You can't look at the results of any test without first knowing what you were trying to achieve. If you wanted appointments for salespeople, then you should test for the lsit, offer and creative that get the most appointments for salespeople, then you should test for the list, offer and creative that get the most appointments.  On the other hand, if the cost per appointment gets too high, you might want to test for a combination that gives you a lower cost per appointment. You might also want to look at the quality of responses -- follow up your mailing to see which list, offer and creative ultimately produced the most sales.

Keep testing until you get the results you want. Then start again.