The Hardest-Working Item in Direct Mail…

… may be the lowly Post-It Note.

According to Roger Dooley’s Neuromarketing Blog, using a Post-It Note to personalize a sales letter can make a huge impact:

In Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, Robert Cialdini describes an interesting twist on the handwritten note. A survey was mailed with three cover letter configurations:
1) A printed letter.
2) A printed letter with a handwritten message.
3) A printed letter with a handwritten message on a Post-It note.

The response rate was a mere 36% for the plain printed cover letter. Adding the handwritten note improved the response rate by one third to 48%. The Post-It more than doubled the response to 75%. A second test to examine the possibility that some magic in the Post-It note itself was responsible for the higher response rate included cover letters with a blank sticky note attached. That approach generated only a slightly higher response rate of 42%.

Dooley’s thoughts as to why the note-on-a- Post-It technique worked so well make for interesting reading. Check out the full post here.

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2 thoughts on “The Hardest-Working Item in Direct Mail…”

  1. Pingback: The Hardest-Working Item in Direct Mail… « Portland’s Finest … | thedirectmailsecrets

  2. Oddly enough, I’m ordering sticky notes with my company’s logo/information on it for this purpose.

    I wonder how this compares with the short note written on business card and paper-clipped to the letter. I’ve always thought lumpy mail gets opened more than smooth mail.

    Reply