The billshrink blog recently outlined “12 ways companies are reacting to the recession“, and a few of us here at the Direct Marketing Voice thought these examples good enough to outline one by one in greater detail.  I’m going to start with the first one mentioned which was “explicit” mentions of money or savings.  Just to be clear, this is slightly different than offering a coupon, or building up value in a product/service.

Here are a few examples in addition to the Geico Ad campaign that billshrink already mentioned:

Ad from 1and1.com

The web host 1&1 has an ad that specifies in red their “old” price ($24.99) and have it crossed out, with their “new” price ($11.99) right below it.  The use of red on their new price draws attention to this point, and the fact that they mention prices right on the advertisement is an overt use of price point strategy in a marketing campaign.  You can’t miss the “50% off” call out on each service, prompting one to action.

Newsweek insert

I included this Newsweek magazine insert, because it’s also a great example of using savings in an ad.  Note the old price, the new cost which is drastically below the one above, and the amount of savings which is more than the new cost.  All these factors, combined with the use of red and the simple, bare font – gets people thinking about the large savings associated with getting a subscription – now.  Also note that Newsweek puts at least 4 of these inserts in their magazine.  This ensures that a newsstand customer will see the subscription offer at least once or twice.  As in any outbound marketing, the more touches the better.  Re-thinking this “newsweek insert” approach for direct mail is very easy – this artwork can easily be slided into a business reply card design, and with the right list could quite easily yield great ROI.

Ithaca Escape Ad

Here is a campaign that does not appear to use money or savings – as your eye is first drawn to the views of waterfalls and bicycle riders.  As the image of a luxury getaway is painted in your mind, this is reinforced by the verbage of “award winning wineries”.  However the ad shocks you by describing that this experience is accessible for “less than $30″.  Again, the focus on savings hits our recession mentality and shows us ways of enjoying life on a budget.  In my opinion this is one of the more clever ads of the three because they build up value in a particular experience but follow it up with a specific price point that everyone (especially NY/NJ citizens) can afford.

Though not all of these examples were strictly direct mail, I hope that some of the creative elements and overall strategies can apply to your particular audience or industry.