My two cents worth.
I have spent huge swags of my life in Direct Marketing - mostly pre-internet era. These were the times when everyone in DM was regarded as a bandit, thief or otherwise low-life. Yet I believe it was here that I really learned about Marketing - you know why? Because there was no place to hide, everything could and was checked - headlines, lists, methodologies, offers, copy treatments - and above all 'results'.
Now when I was Head of Direct Marketing for J Walter Thompson in Australia, we were able to compare effectiveness approaches between different countries - which was truly amazing. In other words -'what worked where?' For example - hard-hitting headlines with strong financial incentives work better in the USA than in Europe, where they are not believed and immediately discarded. Asking a question in the headline works best in the UK (not your 'want to be a millionaire' rubbish - but a question such as - 'are you hearing everything around you?' for hearing aids. Punning headlines work a dream in Hungary, but not in Poland. Clever headlines do not work in Switzerland - and so on.
However we did have another lesson that showed as someone else has pointed out, that multiple despatch of messages is effective - no matter how much we don't want to believe it. The average is between 3-5 times from my records.
The crunch is of course - why do people keep sending out this rubbish? Quite simply because it works! There are still sufficient people being taken in for it to continue to be worthwhile for the advertiser. Note I am not defending the practises - just highlighting the facts.
Firstly another poster recognised that fact that the 1st 5 seconds are critical, but this does not mean 'wham - in your face' - what it does mean is the need to instantly identify your offer to the people most likely to be interested. That takes research into your product and your target groups. Also we must recall that varying country residents are exposed to huge numbers of advertising messages EVERY SINGLE DAY! I remember a report on New York which researched and showed that the average New Yorker can be exposed to up to 8,000 messages!
The mind does not accept all this and so automatically filters out what is of no interest, and settles on what the target person is, or could be interested in.
The big difference now is that we have no serious controls over what we get on the internet, and even spam filters don't work, as 'about your invoice' message tag reveals another offer to improve my manhood, and so it goes on.
The truth about targeting your prospects remains paramount, but owing to the very cheapness and volume of lists available on the internet, it is hard to see whay anyone would want to bother with pre-research - just throw enough of it about and as previously stated - some will stick and some will be acted upon. Not sophisticated, not even clever - but probably worth it to the advertiser.
Also, as I have said before - remember that Adland Pro was not designed as a Chat Forum - but as a Business link. Personally I don't think it works on a business level, but does on a chat basis. Maybe it should re-invent itself on that basis?
Maybe a bit more than two cents worth!
Norm
http://career-training-on-cd.com