Key Takeaways
- Marketing in an age of skepticism requires you to give customers and prospects a reason to lower their resistance and pay attention.
- Value-Added Marketing (VAM) gives something genuinely useful, desirable or worth keeping before—or in addition to—asking for the sale, lead or donation.
- The value-added component should be relevant to the audience and logically connected to the offer.
- Strong envelope teaser copy can turn the value-added component into a compelling reason to open a direct-mail package.
- High perceived value matters more than high production cost. A checklist, guide, map, calculator or special report can outperform an expensive but irrelevant premium.
- Value-added components can attract attention, demonstrate expertise, build trust and activate the principle of reciprocity.
- Multichannel marketing uses multiple channels, while omnichannel marketing connects those channels into one coordinated customer experience. They are related, but they are not the same.
- Value-Added Marketing should strengthen every appropriate channel—from direct mail and email to landing pages, social media, VSLs, webinars and sales follow-up.
- QR codes and personalized URLs can connect a physical mailpiece to useful digital content while making response easier to track and measure.
- Never assume which value-added component will perform best. Test the item, title, teaser copy, presentation, audience and offer because the marketplace is always right.
Your Response Rate…
Marketing in an age of skepticism is always difficult.
Your customers and prospects know when you are trying to sell them something.
Their defenses go up. Their attention goes down.
They may ignore your landing page, email, video, digital ad or direct-mail package before they ever discover why your product, service or organization could help them.
They believe you are there to take something from them—usually their time, attention or money.
Fortunately, Value-Added Marketing can help change that perception.
Value-Added Marketing—or VAM—means giving your customer or prospect something genuinely useful, desirable or worth keeping before, or in addition to, asking for the sale, lead, appointment or donation.
Done correctly, VAM can help you:
- Overcome initial suspicion.
- Capture attention and create curiosity.
- Demonstrate expertise and generosity.
- Build a relationship with customers and prospects.
- Increase response, conversion and return on investment.
Value-Added Marketing should be considered across your entire marketing program. It’s multichannel.
In this article, however, I’ll give special attention to direct mail—because the right value-added component can get the envelope opened, change the tone of the message and create a measurable path to response.
Here are six things you should know.
1. A value-added direct mail component can give prospects a powerful reason to open your envelope.
Before your sales message can persuade anyone, your envelope must first be opened.
Use specific teaser copy on the envelope to tell prospects that something useful or valuable is waiting inside.
The objective is not merely to announce a free item. It is to create relevant curiosity and make the benefit immediately clear.
For Wine of the Month Club, I used an envelope teaser promoting a “Free Checklist.” The package also presented other value-added benefits, including a wine exploration course and a bonus bottle of wine.
The reader could immediately see that there was something to gain from opening and considering the offer.
For Monaco Rare Coins, one envelope announced: “Free Coin Guide Enclosed.”
For another campaign aimed at people involved in international relations and the military, the teaser announced: “World Conflict Map Enclosed.”
Each value-added item was closely connected to the prospect’s interests and the primary offer. That relevance is critical.
An unrelated giveaway may attract curiosity. But a relevant value-added component attracts the right curiosity from a more qualified customer or prospect.
2. A value-added component does not have to be expensive—but it must have real perceived value.
The cost of the item is not what determines its marketing power.
What matters is whether customers or prospects believe it is useful, desirable, exclusive or worth keeping.
A calendar, map, checklist, article reprint, buyer’s guide, comparison chart, calculator, template or special report can have high perceived value without being costly to produce.
The strongest components often do one of four things:
- Save the reader time.
- Help the reader avoid a mistake.
- Make a complicated decision easier.
- Provide information the reader cannot easily find elsewhere.
Remember: value is determined by the customer or prospect—not by the marketer.
3. There is an almost unlimited variety of value-added components.
Value-added pieces can vary in purpose, format, appearance and delivery.
The key is to begin with your customer or prospect. What problem do they want solved? What question do they need answered? What would they use, save, share or refer to again?
For Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, a nickel was visible through the envelope. Many prospects opened the package simply because it is difficult to throw away money.
Once the envelope was open, the nickel created another question: Why did the organization send it?
That curiosity gave the campaign an opportunity to tell its story.
Today, Value-Added Marketing can include both physical and digital components:
- Checklists, guides, maps and special reports.
- Samples, premiums, calendars and reference tools.
- Videos, VSLs, webinars and mini-courses.
- Calculators, assessments and personalized recommendations.
- Templates, worksheets and comparison charts.
- Free consultations, demonstrations or audits.
A direct-mail package can use a QR code or personalized URL to take the reader directly to a video, assessment, downloadable report, demonstration or personalized landing page.
This does more than connect print and digital. It can also make the added value easier to deliver and the response easier to measure.
4. Value-Added Marketing helps build the relationship you need with customers and prospects.
A strong value-added component communicates something important: You are not only asking for something. You are also giving something.
That can create a sense of generosity, usefulness and trust.
It also activates the principle of reciprocity. When people receive something they genuinely value, they are often more willing to give the rest of your message their attention—and more willing to respond when the offer is right.
The goal is not to disguise a sales message.
The goal is to position your company or organization as a helpful resource while demonstrating the value you can provide.
One extensive example came from the Christian ministry The Navigators. Its Christmas direct-mail package included:
- Personalized return-address stickers.
- A booklet of Christmas carols.
- Christmas-themed envelope seals.
- A themed desk calendar.
- A personalized certificate of appreciation.
- A “Christmas Fun” booklet.
The campaign did more than ask for a contribution. It reinforced appreciation, goodwill and an ongoing relationship.
5. Creativity must begin with relevance—not novelty.
When developing a value-added component, think specifically about the people receiving it and the offer you want them to consider.
For a product or service aimed at children’s education, an article titled “7 Surprising Ways to Help Your Child Learn” could be an excellent value-added insert.
For a health product aimed at seniors, I helped create a “Hospital Survival Checklist.” It addressed an immediate concern, offered practical help and generated a strong response.
The title and presentation are also important.
“Free Information Enclosed” is vague.
“The 9-Point Hospital Survival Checklist Every Patient Over 60 Should Read
Before Admission” is specific, relevant and benefit-driven.
Whenever possible, your value-added component should feel:
- Immediately useful.
- Specifically created for the intended audience.
- Closely connected to the primary product, service or cause.Easy to understand and easy to use.
- Worth saving, sharing or acting upon.
6. A value-added component can completely change the tone—and performance—of your campaign.
Without added value, your marketing may communicate only one message: “Here is what we want you to buy, do or give.”
With the right added value, the message changes: “Here is something useful we want to give you—and here is how we may be able to help you further.”
That change can make your campaign feel more helpful, credible and customer focused.
And this principle is not limited to direct mail.
In a multichannel campaign, the value-added component can be adapted to several separate channels: a checklist offered through direct mail, a webinar promoted through email, and a guide offered through social media.
In an omnichannel campaign, those experiences are connected: the direct-mail recipient scans a personalized QR code, reaches a tailored landing page, receives a relevant email follow-up, watches a VSL and enters a coordinated sales or donation journey.
Multichannel expands your reach.
Omnichannel coordinates the experience.
Value-Added Marketing gives customers and prospects a compelling reason to engage with either one.
Test the Value—Because the Marketplace Is Always Right
The added component should never be selected by instinct alone.
Test the component itself. Test its title. Test the envelope teaser. Test its physical or digital format. Test how it is presented in the offer.
You may discover that a simple checklist outperforms a more expensive premium—or that one highly specific title produces far more response than a general one.
As I tell audiences and clients: “We can guess. We can think we know. But the reality is that the marketplace is always right.”
Action:
Could One Value-Added Idea Dramatically Improve Your Next Campaign?
Your next response breakthrough may not require a different product or a larger media budget.
It may require giving customers and prospects a more compelling reason to stop, pay attention, trust you—and respond.
CDMG can help you develop, position and test the right value-added strategy across direct mail, email, landing pages, digital advertising, VSLs and integrated multichannel or omnichannel campaigns.
Our award-winning team combines direct-response strategy, persuasive copy, creative execution, data, targeting and testing to help increase response and return on ad spend.
Call Michael at 615-933-4647 or email him a [email protected] to discuss how Value-Added Marketing could strengthen your next campaign.
Don’t simply add another giveaway. Create a tested reason for customers and prospects to engage—and act.
FAQs:
Q: What is Value-Added Marketing?
A: Value-Added Marketing gives customers or prospects something useful, desirable or worth keeping before—or in addition to—asking them to buy, respond, make an appointment or donate. The added value may be physical, digital, informational, experiential or service-based.
Q: Is Value-Added Marketing the same as offering a discount?
A: No. A discount reduces the price. Value-Added Marketing increases the usefulness or perceived value of the offer without necessarily lowering the price. In some campaigns, a discount and a value-added component may be tested together.
Q: Does a value-added component have to be expensive?
A: No. Perceived value is more important than production cost. A targeted checklist, special report, calculator, map or guide may be inexpensive to produce while being extremely valuable to the intended audience.
Q: What makes a value-added component effective?
A: It should be relevant, specific, useful, easy to understand and closely connected to the primary offer. Ideally, it should solve a problem, answer a question, save time, reduce risk or help the recipient make a better decision.
Q: How does Value-Added Marketing improve direct-mail response?
A: It can create a reason to open the envelope, increase curiosity, extend engagement, demonstrate expertise and change the package from a simple sales request into an exchange of value.
Q: Can Value-Added Marketing be used in digital campaigns?
A: Yes. Digital examples include downloadable guides, videos, VSLs, webinars, calculators, assessments, templates, free trials, personalized recommendations and consultations.
Q: What is the difference between multichannel and omnichannel marketing?
A: Multichannel marketing uses multiple channels, which may operate separately. Omnichannel marketing connects those channels so the message, data and customer experience are coordinated. Value-Added Marketing can improve both approaches, but the two terms are not interchangeable.
Q: How can direct mail connect Value-Added Marketing to digital channels?
A: A mail piece can use a QR code, personalized URL, text response, unique phone number or offer code to lead recipients to a landing page, video, report, assessment or other digital experience. This also improves attribution and measurement.
Q: Should every free gift be considered Value-Added Marketing?
A: No. A free item that is irrelevant, unwanted or confusing may add cost without adding meaningful value. The best component attracts qualified customers or prospects and supports the primary offer.
Q: How should a company test Value-Added Marketing?
A: Test one meaningful variable at a time when practical: the component, title, envelope teaser, format, audience, delivery method or positioning. Measure response, conversion, average order value, cost per acquisition and return on ad spend—not attention alone.
About Craig Huey:
Craig Huey is a Christian, political commentator, and marketing expert. He publishes The Huey Alert and hosts the Huey Alert Podcast with his wife Shelly. Together, they stand at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture, helping Christians understand the issues shaping America today.
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