Question

Topic: Student Questions

B2b Direct Mail Copywriting

Posted by Anonymous on 6/16/2008 at 11:32 AM ET 2000 Points
Hello Everyone,

Ok, so here is the situation. I am pulling to get some copy for a series of three over-sized postcards that we are going to be sending out to financial planners and insurance agents. We are trying to promote one of our business channels called the Business Alliance Program.

In this program we provide financial planners and insurance agents with Long Term Care Specials that they can use for point-of-sale assistance for the sale of long term care insurance with their clients. In the design of these three postcards we have one benefit in particular that is, in my mind, the best reason for using this business channel. The problem is I can’t seem to get it down to something that is quick and easy to understand when turned into copy instead of a conversation.

Right now when I meet with a financial planner, I describe this benefit with the use of several questions and a chart to bring the prospect down a train of thought about their desire to retire. Two things must be understood about independent financial planners before I can lay this out. First, financial planners have two options as exit strategies when they decide to retire a) sell their book of business to another financial planner or b) stop actively seeking new clients. Second, financial planners most often are paid via a percentage of the assets they manage for their clients as known as Assets Under Management (AUM).

The discussion I have with financial planners is about the potential risk to their personal retirement plan based on the risk that their clients face when needing long term care. I will draw out a chart using their numbers to describe the risk to their retirement (Please email me pauld@newmanltc.com to take a look at the chart). The dialog I have with them goes something like this, see below.

These questions are asked after moving the discussion to their retirement:

Do you accept the concept that most financial planner’s clients are about 5 to 10 years younger or old than their financial planner?
Yes. (Chart: I draw the Client and Financial Planner arrows and ages.)

How many clients do you believe you should have by the time you retire to retire well?
200 Clients (Chart: Input the number of clients)

How much in assets under management should you have to retire?
$50 Million (Chart: Input the AUM)

What are the chances that a person may need long term care?
They generally guess some where between 20%-40%. The actual statistic is 1 in 2 people will need long term care at age 65. I make them aware of this but suggest that we play out this example very conservatively with just 10% of their clients needing long term care at age 65. (Chart: Input the percentage of client needing long term care)

What is the cost of care today?
They generally guess pretty close to the actual cost of $72,000 in our area.

What do you think the cost of care will be in 15 yrs when you and your clients are getting ready to retire?
They generally answer about $100,000 in our area.

At what rate is health care costs inflating each year?
5%, I never get a different answer. So I calculate $72,000 * (1.05)^15 = $149,700, which is pretty close to the long term care cost of care estimates by the long term care insurance companies at $160,000. (Chart: Input $160,000 as cost of care in 15yrs)

Then I calculate the 200 clients * 10% chance = 20 clients are going to need long term care and 20 clients * $160,000 = $3.2 million dollars in long term care expenses. Then I draw an arrow labeling it $50 million dollars in AUM and draw an arrow dropping down $3.2 million. I ask at this point, “Can your current financial plan for you and your clients with stand a $3.2 million dollar expense per year after retirement?

So that is the argument in a nut shell. As I said before I am trying to lay this same concept out for our postcard direct mail campaign that is easy to understand and thought provoking enough to cause action. If part of this post is confusing or does not make sense please let me know and I will try to clarify Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Much,

pauld

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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 6/16/2008 at 5:23 PM Accepted
    The copy will flow from the headline, which for your business, needs to point out the likely pain of your prospects.

    Here are some ideas:

    Can Your AUM Afford To Lose $3.2M?
    Insure Your AUM For Your Business' Health
    Help Your Clients. Help Your Bottom-Line.
    The Easiest Way To Protect Your AUM Is...
    Keep Your AUM Healthy...So You Can Retire In Style
    Who's Looking Out For Your AUM?
    Avoid Having Your AUM Crumble Away...
  • Posted on 6/16/2008 at 5:52 PM Author
    Hello Jay,

    Thanks for the response, it is much appreciated as I am not a copy writer. I really like your idea for the "Can Your AUM Afford To Lose $3.2M?" with the response being, "Insure Your AUM For Your Business' Health!" I can really see that as the front side of the postcard with some picture depicting the loss.

    I will have to come up with some more copy for the other side discussing it in more detail and outlining how our business channel will be able to transfer the risk. The only item that I am not sure of is what the offer should be to get a response from this medium. Do you have any ideas?

    Thanks for the Reply,

    pauld
  • Posted by lgallagh on 6/16/2008 at 7:31 PM Member
    Pauld,
    If I understand the correctly, this is my assessment. You have two issues here:
    1)What compelling copy to put on the direct mailers
    2) Teaching the planner how to sell and ask these key questions.

    In this particular case I would suggest using a personalized URL (e.g. www.insurance.paud.com) or a web page. The direct mailer should say something like, "Can your AUM afford to lose 3.2M?"

    Once on the webportal, I would try to encourage the planner to answer a survey of your questions as a type of education. They can answer questions and then have the portal do the caculations. etc. You can then have other education links, whitepapers, instant message an expert etc.

    Now for learning materials, I would make a small, colorful trifolds in addition to the web and the mailers for a desktop speaking guide. These are the area's in which I outline.

    Target Customers and Sectors:
    Customer Pain Points:
    Starting the conversation with a prompter: below is a sample.
    This is pauld Insurance Solutions Company. I am working with the top planners in the industry. Have you considered the following: (1) Did you know that one out of two clients will need long term health care. (2) Do you know the effects that will have on your funds.

    Let me share with you on how we are helping: (1) provide a care assistant etc.....
    Outline Key Questions to Ask:
    Strong Value Proposition:
    What makes your plan Different
    Competitive Overview
    Closing the discussion and handling the objectives.

    I keep this information to about one page.

    Anyway, these are my thoughts. You can get personalized url information from many sites like mindfire.com and printable.com.

    Good luck.
    email me if you would like an education template that I follow.

    lee
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 6/16/2008 at 8:20 PM Accepted
    Less copy is better than more. You don't need to put everything on the postcard. A few bullet points. A call to action. A testimonial. The key to remember is that the purpose of the card isn't to sell them immediately - it's to get them to contact you to continue the discussion that you started. It would be natural for your postcard to refer to your website, which would have more details, and still another call for them to contact you for more information.

    A fancy step would be to use PURL, giving each of your prospects what appears to be a custom page for them. Your postcard likewise could be personalized, "Paul, Can your AUM afford to lose $3.2M?". PURLs (personal URLs) tend to get better click-thrus because of the customization.
  • Posted on 6/17/2008 at 9:35 AM Author
    Hello Lee and Thinkmor ,

    Thanks for your reply. Lee, I think that there is a little confusion around what my goal when I am having this conversation with a prospect. I am asking the financial planner for their commitment to work with one of our long term care specialist to bring long term care planning to their clients. In other words, we ask financial planners to create an interests with the clients for long term care insurance and then refer their client to one of our specialists. This argument is made with the financial planner as a reason that they should be selling long term care insurance and oh by the way we can have someone else do that for you. Anyway, I am not sure that I understand what you were suggesting so I thought a little clarification would be good.

    Thinkmor, I appreciate your response. Your ideas as to how to test the best way for them to respond. I would have never thought of that and we are planning to do some testing in the campaign anyway, I will have to take this into consideration. Do you have any ideas what the size of the testing groups should be?

    New Question: So now that you have got me thinking of testing I have one more question for you. I have been doing some research on sending a postcard or a letter and decided to test each and see what the response is. Although the issue I have been running into has been, "Do we send the direct mail piece to the entire list (6200) or should we send it to a number that our sales force can follow-up with in a timely manner (5 Days)?"

    Thanks for the suggestions!

    pauld
  • Posted on 6/17/2008 at 10:06 AM Accepted
    Can You Afford to Lose $3.2 Million a Year?

    Research conducted by {insert authoritative source} shows that:
    * 1 in 2 of your clients will need long term health care
    * most financial planners are 5-10 years younger than their clients
    * your clients' long-term care expenses can cost you up to $3.2 million per year in AUM - and limit your ability to retire

    Find out if you have enough AUM to retire when you want to. Try our free calculator at {insert landing page URL}. Or, call {insert phone number}. Ask for {Paul} and mention this postcard.

    *******
    You can change the URL with each campaign (newmanltc/retire1; newmanltc/retire2, etc.) Give people more than one way to respond (they may have a cell phone handy, but not a computer).

    Also, some (but not all) of flickr's images are royalty-free. Check first! You can purchase images (at a low cost, generally under $5), at www.istockphoto.com.
  • Posted on 6/17/2008 at 5:04 PM Author
    Hello All,

    Most of the comments made here were very useful and I thank you for them. You got my creative ideas flowing and I believe I will be able to craft a very good series of postcards for this direct mail campaign.

    One of the ideas my colleague and I came up with was a three postcard series that highlights two threats and a value that they are losing out on. The first postcard will ask the financial planner, "Who's talking to your clients about Long Term Care Insurance? It should be you, let Newman LTC show you how." This first card will point out the threat to them losing their clients because they are not providing long term care insurance.

    The second will ask them, "Can your AUM afford to lose 3.2M? Insure your AUM for your business' health." This card points out the threat to their retirement, if just 10% of their clients need long term care. We are going to offer a calculator on our website for them to see what would happen in their personal situation.

    The three installment will ask, "What could you do with an extra $30k in revenue per year? Invest in a new 'Pick your Item.'" This card will outline the revenue they are missing out on because of not selling long term care insurance.

    Anyway, I just thought you all might want to know where we were heading. Thanks for the help.

    pauld
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