A brightly colored mailer with a clever headline may catch the eye, but if it doesn't make your message clear, you may not get the response you should.

According to a story in Direct, a magazine for the direct mail industry, Network General mailed a four-color direct mail offer to 100,000 carefully targeted prospects. The mailer offered a free booklet, but the headline talked about putting out fires (troubleshooting), rather than focusing on the free offer. The ad drew a 3.8 percent response. In several subsequent mailings to lists of the same size, the company cut production costs 35 percent and got a 6 percent response rate by using two-color brochures with headlines that made their offer clear.

Don't let web designers make the same kind of mistake with your homepage, either. Some web designers are more interested in showing off their creativity than focusing on their clients' needs for websites that elicit a specific response. You need to be sure the images on the page mean something to YOUR clients and that there are enough response mechanisms built into the site to make it easy for customers to find out how to call you.

More: Increase Web Site Traffic with Compelling Page Headlines

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