photo credit: sinisterbluebox

As my husband was sorting through the mail, I noticed we received a “lumpy mailer” from Discover Magazine. I love Discover Magazine and wondered what the goodie was. It turns out it was an intro DVD to a new series.

Okay, we don’t need to subscribe to anything new right now so hubby put it to the side. Having been married to the “Queen of All that is Direct”  for almost 20 years, he knows that when a company sends a product unsolicited, we get to consider it a gift and keep it with no further action on our part. He wanted to read the offer anyway. Here’s the scan – edited with my colorful highlighting and underscores.

I had to read this several times to parse and understand it.

So if I don’t want it, they’re encouraging me to send the DVD back without the case (which I can keep and do whatever harm to it I like), but I don’t have to because the DVD is a gift and I get to keep everything anyway?

Who wrote this crap?

Please, please, please. When you have an offer, be sure it’s clear to ANYONE who might read it the FIRST time. A mess like this makes for confusion and when your prospect is confused, they don’t act.

No action, no sales = a FAIL.

So, how should it have read? Something like:

• If you enjoyed your preview and want to keep the big ideas coming, complete and return this reply form with your check payable to Discover in the postpaid mailer. (Yes, just a check. No credit card and no toll-free order number. I’ll be writing a Part 2 of this promotional debacle.)
• If you’ve decided to take a pass on this offer right now, do nothing. Keep the DVD with our compliments. It’s our gift to you just for taking a look.

What Discover’s promo people were trying to do – at least I think they were trying to do this – was a variation on the YES/Maybe/No technique. Folks who chose Maybe send back the form and you get another shot at marketing to them. That can work pretty well to a cold list.

However, we’re already a Discover subscriber so the value of getting us to the return the DVD escapes me right now. Perhaps someone out there in Cyberland can offer a thought on this strategy.

In the meantime, I’m giving Discover and its promo people an F on crafting its offer. For shame. Really. Tomorrow we review the payment and order options!