Why Choose Direct Mail With Your Marketing Dollars?

data lists, design, Direct Mail, VDP

Direct mail has been a popular part of the marketing mix for decades.   Why?  When executed correctly, direct mail pieces can yield a much higher response rate than other forms of marketing.   Direct mail isn’t just limited to letters or postcards.   For example, membership cards, brochures and promotional items can also be mailed.
If you are considering direct mail in your business, here are 4 reasons that direct mail should be a part of your marketing strategy.

1) Targeted Audience
Use your own mailing list or purchase one of ours – sending mail to a specific audience will get you the results you desire.   Lists can be explicit by not only geographical data, but also by options such as gender, ethnicity, income and buying interests.   Increase response rates and improve ROI by using direct mail to target only those prospects that you want to do business with or who have already indicated an interest in your service or product.

2) Personalization
Use personalization to speak directly to an individual, not to an entire mailing list. With digital printing, each mailing can be unique to the recipient.  These personalized messages can include references to past purchases, certain product or service preferences, personal interests, and even personalized promotional offers.  This kind of relevance drives increased response rates.

3) Brand Awareness
Direct mail can be used to effectively build brands.  Utilizing a series of mail pieces with your logo and colors will put your business’ messages right into the homes of your audience.

4) Measurable results
By coding your mailings, you can track results easily.  Tracking methods include, but are not limited to:  offer numbers, coupons, bar codes, phone numbers and even personal URLs.  Tracking can capture those that display an interest in your product, first time purchasers and subsequent orders.

Direct Mail Design and Best Practice

design, Direct Mail

Great direct mail design has the ability to capture a recipient’s attention, get them to read and process content, commit to the message, then execute a specific call to action. Although there is no secret formula for direct mail design that will guarantee 100% participation from all recipients, there are best practices marketers should follow to increase brand visibility, response rates, and overall ROI.

First, know the target audience and determine the end goal.

Before starting to develop direct mail copy and design, the following should be clear:  What are the characteristics of the target audience and what is important to them?  Knowing details about the target audience will help determine the appropriate tone to use for copy, which images should be included, and how to structure ideas in a way the target audience will understand.  Also, the more detailed a marketer can be when identifying qualities and characteristics of their audience, the better the opportunity to refine the message for specific segment groups.  For example, a real estate agent directing a postcard to potential home buyers can segment that broad group into specific categories – investment purchasers, renters, first-time home buyers, expanding families, etc.  Each of these segments would have different motivating factor for purchasing a new home; therefore, the message should speak directly to those issues.

Just as important is clarifying the goal for sending a direct mail piece. What is the intended outcome of the piece?  Is the intention of the message to inform, provoke an action, or just to promote awareness of the brand?  Whatever it may be, there should only be one main idea represented on each direct mail piece. Marketers may only have but a few seconds of the target audience’s attention; therefore, marketers need to choose one goal and drive that point throughout the direct mail piece.

Make an impact with a strong headline and bold imagery.

Like reading a newspaper, the headline is the first thing people see before deciding to read the entire article or direct mail piece.  If the headline is strong and thought provoking, the higher the likelihood that it will capture the attention of the target audience.  Effective headlines may include a surprising statistic, an interesting fact, enticing promotional offer, a question or simple statement. Whatever the structure of the headline, it should relate to the rest of the body copy, the intended goal, and to the audience.

Similarly, visual elements have the power to capture the reader’s attention and evoke emotional response. Use bold colors and choose strong images that speak to core motivations that drive readers toward action. These motivations may include social recognition, self acceptance, love and affection, sense of accomplishment, safety and so on. Using visual elements that trigger these needs can grab the readers’ attention and get them to connect to the message on a deeper level.

Be simple, clear and concise with direct mail messages.

Often times, inexperienced marketers make the mistake of using advanced vocabulary and being too ‘wordy’ when trying to get their point across.  Simplicity and clarity is critical; every sentence should have a purpose and support the ultimate goal.  When reviewing copy, marketers should try to read with the audience’s perspective in mind and ask, “Why should I care? How does this benefit me?”  That exercise might help weed out any unnecessary information and keep marketers focused on being direct with their idea.

Additionally, an effective direct mail piece guides recipients’ behavior by providing a clear call-to-action item. Marketers should be blunt and clear in describing what the next step should be for the recipient. Keep the design of the direct mail piece simple and uncluttered, emphasizing call-to-action items and main ideas.

Include a compelling promotional offer to promote responses.

Highlighting compelling and actionable promotional offers on direct mail pieces such as free or discounted trial, free service consultations, access to valuable information and so on, have the ability to capture a readers’ attention and motivate response. Furthermore, consumers are more likely to provide a fair amount of personal information to redeem a coupon or other promotional offer. For marketers, the advantage of using promotional offers with direct mail is the ability to collect consumer data, identify warm leads, and track direct mail success.

Test, test, and test again.

Once a marketer understands the best practices of direct mail design, they have the opportunity to adjust elements and test what works best for their audience. Split the mailing list in half and always test something; one thing at a time (i.e. – headline only, offer only, positioning of images, etc). Be sure to have a strategy in place to measure responses.

Originally posted by Cynthia Fedor on the directmarketingvoice.com

Direct Mail Breakfast Tray Is “Toast” Of The Town

design, Direct Mail

Direct mail was taken to a new level when Auckland marketing campaigners Mailshop sent breakfast trays to customers that included a printed piece of toast.

The Just for Starters pack — which won a Gold Medal in the Self Promotion Category of this year’s Pride In Print Awards — was the hero of the self-promotion campaign in which recipients received a personally-addressed box to peak the curiosity factor.

Upon opening they encountered their very own breakfast tray, personalised with their own fake newspaper (featuring them) and accompanying cereal, butter, jam and coffee cup. To further enhance the experience the toast was real Vogel’s bread (with “Mailshop” branded onto it) and the banana was a fresh mini Nino banana!

Recipients were directed to a personalised URL (PURL) with the invitation to enter a competition on line, offering a prize of a real breakfast at the Langham Hotel.

The germ of an eye-catching business-to-business mail campaign came when Mailshop moved premises last year and used the opportunity to refresh its visual identity through a logo rebrand. Dashwood Design worked with Mailshop and established a brand essence around the concept “no such thing as ordinary”. The change included a transformation of its website, a new business profile and new signage, stationery, email signatures and vehicles.

A campaign was then devised to showcase the capabilities of Mailshop’s latest Colour 1000 digital press, in particular the broad range of paper substrates and weights it could handle, and to demonstrate to clients what is creatively possible when utilising XMPie software, both online and in digital printing.

Mailshop Managing Director Deidre Ross says the desire was to surprise and delight clients and reinforce the “no such thing as ordinary” idea with a memorable cross-media DM campaign which recipients would want to keep and tell others about, creating conversations about Mailshop to their peers.

“The pack needed to be visually arresting with a high level of customisation and personalisation that would take clients’ breath away and showcase Mailshop’s prowess for detailed execution.

“Timing was critical to heighten the unveiling experience. As a result each pack was hand delivered to companies’ receptions as early as possible prior to 10.30am,” she says.

“The PURL was intended to be a quick and easy experience, a fun extension of the Direct Pack that enabled people to enter the draw and be re-introduced to Mailshop’s broader capabilities. This was subtlety referred to in the breakfast spread. No explanation was given but that did not stop 40% of recipients visiting it and as a result receiving an entry into the draw to win breakfast and a spa for two at the Langham hotel.

“Each pack had a lotto ticket nested into the mini newspaper. The ticket was an important part of the experience as the personalised newspaper showed the recipient being the Lotto ticket winner! It got people involved, they had to go and check it out – anything but ordinary!”

Recipients were high-value Mailshop clients, 120 in total. The mix was advertising agencies and direct marketing clients, chosen due to their activity in the creative direct marketing space.

The campaign resulted in comments such as: “WOW — what an amazing DM I received from Mailshop. Have been so impressed I’ve been showing everyone in the office. It’s great to see such innovation and something tangible in this eWorld we are now living in.”; “Got my awesome breakfast DM box yesterday! Everyone is talking about it around the office. Quick question, is the lotto ticket real?”; and “Thanks for the personalised breakfast box, fabulous! I love the newspaper and especially the lotto ticket inside!! Very clever!! I’ve just entered the draw, fingers crossed!”

Ms Ross says the campaign ignited many client conversations about what is really possible in the DM space and how the latest technology can deliver a more impacting experience that drives results.

Originally posted on www.scoop.co.nz

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Tri-Win Digital Print & Direct Mail has purchased their fifth Kodak Digimaster Digital Production System to support their growing statement mailing customer base..

business mail, data lists, design, Direct Mail, Printing, QR Codes, variable data printing

New technology provides increased productivity.

Tri-Win has always focused on giving customers top quality products, superior customer service, and lower prices. Since 2003 the Kodak Digimaster has been the monochromatic digital printing solution for the Dallas, TX based direct mail house and digital printer. When it came time for Tri-Win to increase their printing capabilities it made sense to purchase another quality Kodak product.

The Kodak Digimaster has a number of advantages over some of the other monochromatic digital cut-sheet presses. Their ability to use a larger variation of paper weight lets Tri-Win’s customers make printing decisions based on branding and quality instead of print restrictions. Superior image and half tone quality creates an easier to read statement for the mail recipients. In Tri-Win’s personal experience the Kodak Digimaster requires fewer repairs than some other cut sheet monochromatic presses. “The Digimaster is the best cut-sheet press available,” Russell Honeycutt, Director of Data and Print.

 

Currently Tri-Win prints and mails approximately 5 million statements each month for 10 different clients. Beginning in June, Tri-Win’s fifth Digimaster will be installed to support their growing business. Once that new press is installed Tri-Win will have five different models of Digimasters; a Digimaster 9150, E125, E150, EX138, and EX150

 

Investing in the future.

Tri-Win is always looking for opportunities to add value to their direct mail and digital printing services; monochromatic cut-sheet printing, single-pass inserting, QR Code generation, variable data printing, and data list maintenance, are just a few of the unique innovative services that Tri-Win provides to their growing clients.

Investing in smart technology provides opportunities for growth, no matter what state the economy is in, but being able to invest without borrowing money sets Tri-Win apart from most print and mail companies. Every piece of equipment that Tri-Win uses is owned outright. Every process in place is evaluated for efficiency. Tri-Win constantly looks for ways to do things faster, better, or cheaper without sacrificing the quality of the product, and the benefits of the new processes get passed on to their customers.

Superior customer service is the standard.

The constant search to enhance the quality of Tri-Win’s processes is just one way they separate themselves from the competition through service. Tri-Win has some of the latest technology in the direct mail industry, but they built their customer base by focusing on customer service. “It’s important to us to make the direct mail process as easy as it can be. We want you to know that you can give us your project and we will take care of the details. We can purchase your data list, design your mailer, print the pieces, and get everything in the mail. We can take care of all the details of your direct mail campaign so you can take care of the details of running your business”, Scott Swanner, Operations Manager.

Tri-Win’s dedication to efficiency and superior customer service allowed them to grow every year for 15 years. Now they boast nearly 500 clients and send out an average of 500,000 pieces of mail every day.  You don’t pay for unnecessary labor; you don’t pay for interest payments. When you work with Tri-Win you pay for the most efficient mail shop process available. With the addition of a new Kodak Digimaster their print shop is ready for new business.

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Your Crash Course in Postcard Mail Marketing

business mail, design, Direct Mail, Printing, variable data printing

Are you clueless about direct mail marketing and postcard printing? If you are, then you have come to the right place. In this crash course for postcard printing and direct mailing campaigns.

Are you clueless about direct mail marketing and postcard printing? If you are, then you have come to the right place. In this crash course for postcard printing and direct mailing campaigns, I will give you the three crucial steps that you need to know to do a campaign correctly. So without further ado, let us start with the first step in postcard printing and that is the composing of the message.

1. Developing a good message concept – Postcard marketing will succeed or fail depending on its message concept. So your first step is to decide on the “angle” or approach of your message so that it effectively delivers the marketing message. For postcards, there are a few simple message concepts or approaches you can go for. Below are some that you can use.

– The reference approach – This approach basically has the postcard content sounding like a reference or textbook. It basically gives factual and detailed information that your market may want to know about. This draws in people who are curious or hungry for knowledge.

– The need and want approach – This approach basically appeals to the needs and wants of people. You basically show your readers what they want to see so that they can crave for it or start wanting them again. This approach requires impressive images so that the postcard marketing can be impressive.

– The fear approach – This approach plays on certain fears of people. For example, if you are using color postcards to market a weight loss item, then you can use content that makes people aware of the dangers of getting fat. This kind of fear technique for marketing can really work, since there are a lot of things people may want to avoid.

– The bandwagon approach – Finally, we have the bandwagon approach. This basically involves telling people that the rest of the world is already buying and using your products or services. Since everybody else seems to be doing it, then people will think they can do it as well through your postcard marketing.

2. Proper postcard printing – With your message and design ready, the next step is postcard printing. In this regard, your task is pretty simple. You just need to hire a good and affordable postcard printing company to produce your postcards. Just choose the appropriate paper materials and printing options for your postcard and they should turn out well.

3. Proper distribution techniques – Finally, with your postcards printed, the final step is to distribute your postcards for direct mailing. In this regard, I recommend that you use a private mailing service to distribute your marketing postcards. These services are usually more reliable as well as quick in their distribution.

Have them send your color postcards repeatedly at least 3 times to reinforce your marketing message. Pace these distribution times by around two to four week intervals so that people won’t think your are just sending junk mail. These should be your standard distribution practices until you are confident enough to be more creative.

Great! That is your crash course for direct mail marketing using postcard printing. Hopefully, this should help you get started with your direct mail marketing campaign. Good Luck!

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Originally posted on marketpressrelease.com

9 Ways to Save money on direct mail and increase your ROI

data lists, design, Direct Mail, Printing

One of the primary arguments against direct mail is the cost to get the campaign going. There are printing costs, postage costs etc, but looking at your direct mail budget as an expense is slightly flawed. View a direct mail budget as an investment not an expense since you should get your budget back in new sales. Measure the success of a direct mail campaign by measuring your return on investment (ROI). Does it really matter if you spend $10,000 on this month’s mailer if it brings you $25,000 in new business? It does if you don’t have $10,000 to spend.

There are a number of ways you can get that initial investment down so you can increase your ROI and make direct mail more affordable.

What can you do with your data list to prevent wasting money?

1. Don’t mail to people who don’t need your product – The single most effective way to keep costs down in a direct mail campaign is to reduce the number of people on your data list. Don’t mail to a general list. Every contact you mail to who don’t/can’t/won’t use what you are offering is a waste of money so you need to target your mailings. When you talk to a list broker make sure you are targeting demographics that are likely to care about your advertising. Don’t market a Mac Power Book to Bill Gates or pool cleaning services to someone who doesn’t have a pool.

2. 81¼A Goose Chase Circle Nowhere USA – It doesn’t matter if you buy, rent, or collect a list from customers you waste money with every direct mail piece sent to people who are no longer there. Delivery Point Validation (DPV) should be part of every data list process before your first stamp gets licked. Not that I suggest licking stamps. We have machines for that these days.

3. Jack moved last year –Before you apply your postage you need cross reference your list against the National Change of Address (NCOA). There is no reason to send Jack Hill’s mail to Jill Crown. You are just going to give Jill a headache and waste some money that could have been used to get Jack to buy the in-home water purification system.

Printing costs are second only to Postage costs so what can be done to keep those under control?

1. 11×17 Yeah, that will get their attention! – Paper is the number one cost of printing. The more pieces you get out of one sheet of paper the cheaper your mailer. It sounds simple but make sure you and your graphic designer know how your project is getting printed. Will it printed on a sheet fed printer or a roll printer? What the starting size of the paper? What is the usable print area? This simple series of questions should be asked before ink meets paper to keep cost down and efficiency up.

2. Gold leaf is pretty… – Paper quality directly affects the way your potential customer will persevere your product and company so you don’t want to use newsprint, but there is no reason to use the most expensive stock on the market. Ask about your paper options. Most printers have an in-house paper stock that they buy in great quantities so they get a very low price on it. Plus it’s probably very well suited for direct mail, and the finishing processes that add a professional touch.

3. What do you mean 4 color process , my mailer only has green on it? – Full color printing, aka 4-color process printing uses four colors of ink (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black) to recreate the spectrum of color we see. It’s needed if you want to print photos or more than 3 different colors on you mailer, but could you get your message across only using one, or two colors? Design your mailer using 1 or 2 spot colors an you could save money depending on how the piece is printed.

The big expense of a direct mail campaign is postage, but all postage is not the same.

1. First class or standard – The most obvious option you have is the class at which you want your mail to travel. First Class mail is the more expensive of the two, and it usually gets delivered in 1-2 days. It’s more likely to get opened since postal employees are instructed to make every effort to deliver fist class mail even if there is a missing component in the address. Standard Mail is less expensive, and delivery times vary between 2 -9 days. This is fine for anything that is not time sensitive but don’t use it if you want your mailer to get to an address on a certain day. Another concern is that the USPS doesn’t guarantee the delivery of standard mail. If the mail is undeliverable it’s likely that it will just get thrown away without notification.

2. It’s shaped like a teddy bear -The size and shape of your mailer affects the cost. There is nothing more frustrating that realizing you could have saved $0.13 per mailer if you would have reduced the size of piece by 1/8th of an inch. I know $0.13 doesn’t sound like much, but if you are mailing 2,500 pieces a week that adds up very very fast. Asking if you could get lower postage rates by making a small change to the size or shape of a mailer is always a good idea.

3. All postage is NOT the same, wait I said that already – A good mail house knows techniques that will reduce the cost you have to pay for postage. The USPS will discount postage costs if part of the work of delivering the mail is done before it gets into their hands. Ask about Co-palletization and Commingling to get volume discounts. Ask if you can get automated pricing. Ask about ways to save money. Postage costs are too complicated to explain in a blog post, but if you have questions leave me a comment and I will answer.

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The 8 Components to a Successful Direct Mail Campaign

data lists, design, Direct Mail, Printing, variable data printing, VDP

Direct mail is one of the best marketing tools when you want to connect with a potential customer on a personal level. A well developed campaign can generate new sales for pennies on the dollar, source leads for your sales people, create brand awareness, and make your marketing budget work harder and go farther. On the other hand a poorly developed direct mail campaign will leave your phones silent and give your sales people the opportunity to catch up on their reading. So how do you create a well developed direct mail campaign? Is there one factor that dictates if your mailer is read? Can one decision reduce your response rate? What makes one direct mail campaign work while another fails?

You can have the best data list but if you don’t offer the potential customers something they want they won’t respond. New and innovative creative without a call to action will leave your registers empty. The point is this: the key to direct mail success does not involve one single component it involves everything working together. What are the components? How do you maximize the effectiveness of each component? Well…

The three most important components are often considered to be the data list, the creative, and the offer.

1. Data List
Arguably the single most important part of any direct mail campaign, your data list dictates who gets your direct mail advertising, and who doesn’t. Before you go out and buy 10,000 addresses you need to know who you are marketing to. Define your audience and the audience and sub-segments. You know your business best, and you know who is going to buy what you have to sell. Decide where the best opportunities are and target your direct mail campaign. By working with a good list broker, and knowing the type of person who is likely to purchase your product you can send your direct mail piece to the people who are likely to buy your product, and only those people.

There is no reason to send an ad offering “half price pool cleanings” to everyone in an apartment complex. By getting specialized data from a list broker you can dictate specific factors that will make your mailing more likely to succeed. You could start by making sure everyone on your data list has a pool then narrow your list down further by making sure the prospects already use a pool service. Targeting specific demographics, versus mailing to the general population, increase the chances that your mail targets have an interest your product or service and will want what you are offering.

2. Creative
First impressions are everything. From the time a prospect sees your direct mail piece you have 3 seconds to get their attention. If your mailer doesn’t captivate the reader your ad will end up in the trash. If the mailer looks cheap the company sending the mailer will be considered cheap, and the mail piece will be considered junk mail. A professional designer with a good understanding of the direct mail campaign’s goals can create a mailer that will connect with customers emotionally, personally, and logically. The most effective direct mail campaigns connect with the reader on an emotional level before the reader can process any logical approach to marketing. Non-profit mailers tend to pull heart strings, car companies use relaxation and luxury to connect to the prospect. In either case the connection is emotional from the second the customer sees the direct mail piece, but to really separate good direct mail from great direct you should reinforce the emotional connection of the mailer with individual personalization.

Variable data printing allows some truly impressive personalized direct mail. A car company’s service reminder campaign serves as a superb example. When a customer takes their car in for servicing the car company notes the customer’s millage, the services purchased, what time the customer’s service appointment was, and the mileage the car. Based on a number of factors such as mileage or the date of the previous appointment the dealership will mail a service reminder to the customer that says something like “Mr. Jones, it has been three months since you were at the Main Street Dealership to have the oil changed on your Jetta. We have set aside 8am on Wednesday May 4th 2011 for you. Please call us to confirm this appointment, or to schedule a time that works better for you.” In addition to the very detailed personalization, the reminder postcard will have a picture of the newest Jetta in case the customer is interested in purchasing a newer model. Personalization really separates good direct mail, from ok direct mail. Most of the time people won’t have that kind of data on new prospects, but it’s important to think about what information you do have.  Investing in a good data list you can get some very good information to use for personalization and emotional connection.

3. The Offer
People are offered discounts and freebies all day long every day. It’s come to the point that many people are desensitized to the generic discount offers. The offer  you present in your direct mail campaign needs to be something that will appeal to the niche segment. Think about a restaurant that’s mailing to an opt-in list gathered at a charity event. By offering to donate $2 to the charity for every entrée purchased when they bring in the mail piece the restaurant does 2 things. First they appeal to the charitable nature of the people on the list, and second they provide something of value to the prospect, food. Another option could be offering a free chocolate dessert to a list of people who left their contact information at a local chocolatier. In either case there is a specialized offer based on specialized information about the potential customer. The more customized the offer the better your response rate will be, as long as you targeted the offer to the right people. Never assume that a general offer will work as well as a targeted offer. No matter what offer you decide to use you need to get to the point quickly. Potential customers want to know “what’s in it for them” and they want to know sooner rather than later.

The data list, creative, and offer are often seen as the most important parts of a direct mail campaign, but there are 5 more components to good direct mail campaigns that need to be addressed.

4. Call to Action
A call to action is not an offer. It might include an offer, but the call to action tells the potential customer exactly what to do next. Call now to get your free Yo-yo, Log in to get more information, Send us the enclosed postcard to get your free book. Sometimes it seems like an obvious next step but never leave anything to chance. Telling them exactly how to take advantage of the offer will increase your response rate.

5. Contact Method
When the customer follows the call to action it’s vital that you let the customer choose the kind of interaction they find the most comfortable. For some it will be a phone call, others will want to use a web site. Give the customer as many options as you can, email, web, phone, fax, QR codes, snail mail. If the customer doesn’t like their contact options they will simple choose not to contact you. You only need to list contact information once. Not once per side, just once. If a person wants to contact you they are more than willing to flip over a direct mail piece to look for your phone number.

6. Timing
A direct mail piece offering a 20% discount on landscaping plants to a someone who just spent $500 dollars buying new shrubs  is not going to work very well, but if you mailer arrived a day sooner that may be different. It’s important to try to predict when people will be receptive to your offers. It’s impossible for a plumber to know that a prospect is going to have a pipe burst in a week, but that plumber knows that February is the coldest month of the year so sending out a direct mail campaign in January would be a good idea. You can’t predict specific events but you can focus on constants like changes in seasons, or regular maintenance as noted in the car company example above. Be sure to you what information you have to the best of your ability.

7. Repetition
Direct mail is not a one and done approach to marketing. When you make the decision to buy a TV you’re already familiar with 2-3 stores that sell electronics, and your familiar with them because you have seen their advertising. Direct mail gets its best results when a prospect gets multiple mailers over a period of time thus building a customer’s familiarity with your company. They start to learn about you and your services so when it turns out they need your services they are you are the first company they think of.

8. Testing
To truly understand what works and what doesn’t work you need to test. Don’t just test when things don’t work, test when they do work. Test multiple offers. Test multiple creative approaches. Testing a successful campaign can give you insight into why it works so you can make it better. Testing a campaign that doesn’t work can salvage your marketing investment. You may think you know why your direct mail campaign is working, but will never know for sure until you test it.

Mailing a great offer to the wrong people or sending amateur creative to customers will cause your sales to suffer. Plan your mailer, think about your audience. What will motivate them to contact you? How do you connect with them on an emotional level? What is the best time to for them to receive your mailer? Don’t plan for just one mailing. If your budget only allows you to mail to 10,000 pieces try mailing to 2,500 people 4 times. If your campaign is good you will get a better return on investment. Direct mail is only as good as the components that create the campaign, but when all the components work together you get a powerful personalized ad that speaks directly to the needs of your customer.

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Have you had a direct mail campaign that performed well above what you expected? Or a direct mail campaign that failed horribly? What do you think you did right or wrong? Comment and let us know!

Direct Mail Beginning to End – Production

design, Direct Mail, Printing, VDP

So now you have a great list of prospects and with a little help from last week’s post, Direct Mail Beginning to End – Design, a clever professional looking design that people will want to read your direct mail campaign. This week it’s time to take your creative to a practical place and, sadly, allow real world considerations to start affecting our final outcome. Things like size, shape, paper quality, color, weight all affect what your final costs will be. I know is sounds complicated but if it was all intuitive I wouldn’t need to write this blog would I?

Let’s start with paper quality and finishes. This decision should focus on your aesthetic preference and what impression you want to give to your customers. Do you want to have nice textured 130 pound paper or would 60 pound text paper work for your mailer.  The quality of your paper speaks to the nature of your company.  If you go with the cheapest option your decision to use low quality materials will be obvious to you prospects. Selling a luxury car with uncoated paper that tears as you turn the page will not send the message of quality and status that ultimately sells a $50,000 car. The better quality paper you use the better your mailer looks, but even if you can stand in front of the owner of your business and justify why you spent three dollars for each postcard you mailed you may want to reallocate that funding somewhere else. High quality paper sends a message of quality but too much quality can send the wrong impression. For example, if you use a very expensive stock in a donation direct mail campaign for a local charity you may find that you have sent the impression that the charity has extra income so donations may not be needed after all. Your paper choice should be affected by the message you are trying to send. If this doesn’t make much sense to you talk to your designer. If you have a good artist working for you they will understand what I mean and offer a suggestion or two regarding paper and finishing.

The paper finish: gloss, matt, coated, uncoated, etc. effects the impression your mailer has on a customer, so you need to consider paper finish as part of your impression but the bigger concern is durability. It doesn’t matter what paper you choose if the mailer is destroyed by the time it reaches its destination. Once I made the mistake of printing a direct mail campaign on a gloss finish paper without using a protective coating. By the time it made it thought the mail it looked like someone had used it as sand paper. You can save a little money if you decide not coat the paper with a protective finish but make sure it can survive the post office’s automated processes. You may not need to use coated stock if your mailing goes in an envelope, but any surface of the direct mail piece that is exposed in the mailing process should have a protective coating to avoid damaging the ink.

Now let’s talk about the ink. The more colors that you need to print the more expensive it is to print. Printing one color of ink is going to be your cheapest option. You have options of printing 2, 3 or 4 colors as well. 4 color printing is also called full color since you use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) to reproduce the full spectrum of colors. If you are printing 1, 2, or 3 colors you are probably using a spot color. Spot colors are inks that are mixed before they are put into a printing press to get a certain color and are generally not mixed. That ends today’s remedial ink 101 lesson. With direct mail your printing options are only limited by your budget, but remember the more inks you need the more your cost will be. There are some very creative and eye catching designs made using 1 or 2 color printing so don’t let the concern of ink costs limited the quality of your art. To make sure you are getting the best materials for your money you need to be sure the printer you are working with understands their business and knows when digital printing is better than off-set printing.  Get an expert (pay attention to that expert line I’m going to use it again in next week’s post).

Printing is the first major cost of producing a direct mail campaign. There are decisions that need to be made at this stage of the process that have wrong answers. Very costly wrong answers so get a printer that knows what they are doing! Get an expert ( I guess I used this line sooner than I thought. It must be IMPORTANT!) Make sure your printer is willing to discuss options with you. They should be willing to talk to you about the printing process, and discuss options on what kind of printing would work best for you.  Allow them to make recommendations, but make sure they can tell you why they made those recommendations. Make sure you know how long it will take to get your materials printed. Once you get your mailer printed you will need to deal with the other major cost of a direct mail campaign, postage, and I will deal with that next week in Direct Mail Beginning to End – Postage.

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Direct Mail Beginning to End – Design

design, Direct Mail

People are harsh, at least in regard to direct mail. Even the sweetest little old lady who greets strangers on her morning walk will throw away a direct mail postcard without a second thought. Let’s not think about what that guy you cut you off on the way to work would do. In fact people will only give you about 3 seconds of their time before they decide if they want to read what you sent them, or pile it on top of the credit card bill in the recycling bin. It’s that tiny window of opportunity that makes design so important. Like I said in Direct Mail Beginning to End – Data Lists, your data is the most important part of a direct mail campaign but design comes in a close second.

It’s the design of your direct mail piece that will get you past the 3 second window, and get the recipient to read your message.  While there is no single “best” or “right” way to design a mailer I can give you some fundamentals to think about during the process. First, you need a designer. Your nephew who likes to mess around with Photoshop is NOT a designer. Well, probably not anyway and if you want to create a good mailer you will need to work with someone who not only knows what the terms bleed, cmyk, and ppi mean but can create something that looks professional. Since every direct mail campaign is or SHOULD be unique I can’t help answer questions like what color you should use, or is this font better than that font.  Those are questions that need to be addressed with your designer along with a few other basics.

First things first people need to be informed who you are and what you are offering. If you sending out mailers to clients you have already worked with, or you have a level of brand recognition that Nike would envy than all you need may be a logo.  If you are an unknown then you will need to give the reader a bit more to go off. It may just take a photo, or a slogan but you need something. Remember reading “is no single “best” or “right” way to design a mailer” about 20 seconds ago, there is another approach you might want to take. Give the customer no explanation and see if pure curiosity can drive them to get the information. If I got a postcard in the mail that only had a QR Code I would pull out my phone and find out more.

Next there should be an offer of some kind.  You can offer to give them a discount, you can offer to give them more information, you can offer to give them free kitten with each dog house sold, but you need to offer them something. This is the part of a direct mail piece that appeals to the “what’s in it for me” attitude that permeates American society today so make the offer good. You are not creating a direct mail campaign to use up a budget surplus.

Finally you will want a call to action: come in and get free appetizer, call to hear movie times, register your account and get a free death ray! Tell the person getting the mail how to take advantage of the offer. Directing someone to take action has been proven to work better than simply telling them about the deal. Your call to action can be as direct as “Come buy my Nachos!” or it might be more passive like “When you get a moment, log in and see what we can do for you.” The best call to action is dependent on who are marketing to at the time, and you will probably want to talk to your copy writer about what will work best.

Now here is the tricky part you need to hit all three points in a way that is personal to each person who receives the mailer. Since you have a good data list you know enough about your targets so you can integrate their name into the mailing as a first step. Then you can use a series of images to talk to a potential client on an emotional level. If you know your customer likes to sail thanks to a data list that includes hobbies include some images of people using your product on a boat.  If your client is a college professor include academic related images.  If the prospect is a mechanic a picture of grimy hands is a way to connect. Reach out in an emotional way with imagery, and logical way with facts to get the best chance to connect to a potential new sale. If you are concerned about the complexity of creating a direct mail campaign with this level of detail don’t be. It is much simpler than you may think. Variable data printing allows you to print all the direct mail pieces in one run while changing the images and names on each individual mailer.  Designing a direct mail campaign that truly is customized to each recipient will increase response rate, and get you a better return on your investment.

Your design is what will catch people’s attention, get them to read your message, and get you past the 3 second trashing. Think about how many number 10 envelopes you get in the mail every day, then thing about how many triangle shaped self mailers you get in the mail. Are you going to be more likely to spend more time looking at the standard form letter or a three panel self mailer tied with a bow? The unique piece will always get more attention but creativity costs money. The post office does its job very well, but they do not embrace creativity. This is might be a bit obvious but I’m going to say it anyway; the size and shape of your direct mail piece directly affects how much it costs to produce and mail.  Next week I will start to talk about automation and post office regulations and how to create something that won’t use all or your annual advertising budget.

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