Over a year ago in this space, we offered advice on "5 Tips for Success in a Slow Economy" (see: http://www.connectdirect.com/tips/hs200107.html). Alas, given the continued doldrums in the business world, our recommendations still apply today, but one tip in particular bears repeating based on results of a recent test.

We've long counseled clients that when prospects aren't buying - and to a lesser extent, even when they are - it's best to focus a campaign not on the merits of your particular product or service, but on the benefits of requesting and receiving the offer. As we said back in 2001, "... take a more educational tone, focus on pain points, and offer people free information on how to solve a problem (coincidentally, the same problem your product will solve)."

The degree to which today's prospects are repelled by even the hint of being sold a product was brought home in a recent e-mail broadcast for a software client. In the campaign, we conducted a test of headline copy (the first words the reader sees when he or she opens the e-mail) that attempted to gauge how and if we might leverage the client's considerable awareness and market reputation.

Roughly speaking (details have been changed), the two headlines read:

A. Discover cost-effective network performance
B. Discover cost-effective network performance with (Company Name)

All other copy was identical. (We also tested list source, job title, and subject line.) Across a variety of different lists, Headline A generated over 90 percent higher response than Headline B.

Had the client been an unknown entity with little or no market awareness, the results might have been less surprising, but given our client is the clear market and technology leader in its space, and enjoys a good reputation amongst the IT community to whom the campaign was aimed, the degree to which a simple mention of their name deflated response was remarkable, to say the least.

What these results clearly show, however, is that in the current buying climate, prospects shy away from anything they perceive as a product pitch, and respond much more favorably to a more educational or information-oriented message.