Direct Marketing Notes from the U.K. Direct Response Copywriting Archive April 2018 2

April 2018 2

From the desk of Scott Martin, direct response copywriter, Aspen, Colorado.

Direct Marketing Notes from the U.K.

Thoughts from the U.K.

I’m sending this email from the U.K. where I’m spending a few days seeing family and friends plus attending a wedding.

There are so many similarities between America and U.S. yet so many subtle and not-so-subtle differences.

Let me focus on a few differences that seem salient when it comes to direct marketing.

Print still exists in the U.K.

Newspapers are dying in the U.S., and, as a former employee of a major newspaper, it’s not a huge shock. But, in the U.K., people still want their physical newspapers and their physical magazines.

Look at just a small portion of a newsstand in a town in the U.K. ... hundreds of specialty magazines.

What’s totally remarkable is the variety of and depth of niches. The U.K. offers thriving magazines in everything from knitting to trucking.

Many copywriters believe they need to rush into a niche and specialize in a niche. That’s fine provided there’s plenty of business in the niche.

So there are two lessons here.

First … there’s a rampant thirst for information and this will never change. Good news for copywriters who help clients to sell information.

Second … it’s not all digital. Print is alive in certain areas and this can translate to direct mail. One of my clients has sent 2 million post cards in the past 12 months for a client in southern California in the health space.

TABLOIDS. You see them in New York City but nowhere else in the United States ... unless I’m missing something, which is very possible.

But daily tabloid newspapers are huge in the U.K. Deep inside these tabloids, the advertorial is prevalent. Yesterday, I saw an opt-in page ... in a newspaper.

You’ll see some magnificent headlines and copy in these newspapers. But you’ll also see some superb examples of advertorials. In fact, you’ll also see them in the broadsheet papers, like The Daily Telegraph. You will also see them in certain magazines.

Yes … direct marketing is alive and well in the UK plus there’s something else I’ve noticed in the U.K. People are more interested in deals.

It’s all apocryphal, of course, but I sense that people in the UK are more tuned into deals and promotions than they are in the U.S. Maybe it’s because the cost of living is so much higher in most of the U.K. than the U.S. but fatigue in the U.S. may also play a role.

Yes … direct marketing is alive and well in the U.K. So is print.

Scott Martin Direct Response Copywriter