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 advertising gets a bad rap.  It doesn’t get the kind of exposure that TV commercials get, or the kind of captive audience that radio commercials get during the drive home, but it is one of the best advertising mediums available. Direct Mail is all about efficiency, and it’s important that people understand how effective efficiency is in advertising. TV and radio alike focus on creating a commercial that broadcasts to everyone tuning in. Think of it like giving the first 3,000 people who look at you the same message. It doesn’t matter who they are, what they do, or what motivates them. If they see you, then you give them the message. Not only is this a very impersonal approach to advertising but if the TV ad is offering a lunch discount on sushi to a person with a fatal fish allergy then the ad is not going to work. Not to say the shotgun approach doesn’t work, it does, but its lack of efficiently is expensive.  The expense of producing a quality TV ad is still out of reach for many small and medium sized businesses that’s why most TV commercials are produced by the Wal-Mart’s and Best  Buy’s of the world. Fortunately there is another way.

Direct mail removes the shotgun from advertising and focuses on creating a personal targeted campaign. When executed well it really is one of the most efficient forms of advertising. Wal-Mart and Best Buy, with their huge advertising budget and multiple TV commercials, still use direct mail because it can be customized for each and every individual targeted in an advertising campaign. With a well developed direct mail campaign the customer who carries around an EpiPen to protect himself from an accidental taste of sashimi would never see the “all you can eat” sea food advertisement. The discount shrimp ad would have skipped his mail box, and perhaps found a local foodie with tight budget. Direct mail is all about getting the right message into the right hands. Unlike TV or Radio that speaks to everyone whether they are listening or not, good direct mail only targets people who might want what you have to offer. Then it packages the offer in a way that appeals the potential customer as an individual.  By limiting the audience to interested parties, and approaching that audience in a personal way, a direct mail campaign can get better results at a noticeably smaller cost than any TV Commercial.

If a targeted personalized ad campaign that can be produced for as low as a $0.25 per lead sounds like it might be a something worth looking into then you are in luck. Over the next few weeks I am going to explain how to create a direct mail campaign from beginning to end in a step by step process, buying the data list, designing your direct mail campaign, producing the mailers, and mailing the campaign.  I’ll even throw in some information about getting a good postage rate, measuring response rates, integrating a direct mail campaign with new technology and how it can be done in an environmentally friendly way. It can sound like a lot but if you take it one step at a time, and you have the right direct mail experts backing you it is a very manageable process.  Take some time decide who are the most likely people to buy what you’re selling.  Does this target group, own a home, do they make over 6 figures, are they in school, do they have a birthday in January, do they own pets? Think about it and figure it out because next week , in Direct Mail Beginning to End – Data Lists, I’m going to talk about the most important part of any direct mail campaign, the data list.

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By David Henkel

Marketers have heard the call to build brand loyalty and engage customers with their direct mail activities through the use of multiple media channels. Combining traditional direct mail tactics with new, interactive capabilities is a cost-effective way for every business—particularly small and midsize businesses without large marketing departments—to produce a higher return on their investment and generate business leads. Employing a multi-touch direct marketing program also offers the opportunity to gain a closed-loop system that tracks, analyzes, and measures the value of a campaign.
The scenario used to go like this: John Smith receives a piece in the mail speaking to the masses who might be interested in the product or service being sold. There is, of course, a call to action with a phone number in the hopes that John is one out the many mailed to who is interested enough to make a call to get more information. This is often called “spray and pray” direct mail marketing, and rightly so. A prayer is the only thing that might spur action unless John really wants your product or service.
But let’s fast-forward. Today John Smith receives a piece via traditional mail, or another initial communication such as an e-mail, with a personalized URL (PURL) or a QR code he can scan with his smartphone leading him to a microsite that houses the information he is most interested in receiving. Once on his microsite, John may find anything from an invitation to sign up to receive monthly e-newsletters to an embedded video to downloadable coupons for a chance to win a relevant prize.

Shortly after visiting the microsite, John will receive an e-mail response thanking him for visiting the site. Based on information John chose to share while there, he may receive an additional letter, text, or social media notification as a follow-up to the product or service he expressed interest in. Now we have created a totally different experience for him—and for the business employing a direct mail campaign to engage him.
Integrating interactive technologies into traditional direct mail campaigns allows you to receive demographic information and data on consumer behavior in real time. Additionally, using intelligent mail tracking (such as USPS’s Confirm service) enables you to receive e-mail from the Postal Service confirming the drop date of your direct mail piece. Delivery alerts make it possible for you to notify customers via e-mail or SMS to expect a personalized package in the mail, sparking curiosity.
Another component involves PURLs, QR codes, and microsites designed to let customers choose how involved they want to become in the campaign and how much of their contact information they are willing to share. Providing the option to opt in or opt out of communications creates a stronger database of engaged customers for future campaigns.
This sort of permission-based marketing can, of course, also be a source for referrals. Customers may forward links to videos and articles on their personalized landing page to their family and friends, expanding a campaign’s reach and effectiveness.

Combining direct mail and interactive strategies also saves time and money. Rather than having to pay 47 cents for a business reply card and waiting for the post office to return the information, you can direct customers to respond online, through social media outlets, or via mail depending on their preference. With so many choices to efficiently communicate and participate in a campaign, customers are more likely to say yes to the offer.
More good news is that smart direct mail campaigns just keep getting smarter. An integrated marketing program also provides the ability to populate CRM systems with information collected throughout the campaign. This intelligence indicates which calls to action and packaging drew the greatest response, information that is vital for refining future campaigns as well as helping to educate sales teams on business leads and development.
Direct mail has always been an effective form of influencing consumer behaviors and strengthening brand identity. But times have changed, and consumer behavior has definitely changed with them. Now, with the advent of easy-to-implement, affordable interactive technologies—and the intelligence we can gain from them—your direct mail campaign can be more powerful and influential than ever before.

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by Beth Negus Viveiros
Why personalized URLs might be a good addition to your next mailing.

It’s common sense to include a URL as a response mechanism in any direct mail piece to give recipients a quick and easy way to get more information or make a purchase.

Increasingly, mailers are turning their plain vanilla Web addresses into URLs personalized to the recipient. “They add relevance, and they engage the customer across multiple media for a longer period of time,” says Jesse Himsworth, channel marketing manager of AlphaGraphics Inc.

Himsworth shares a few reasons you might want to dress up your next mailing with PURLs:

The Wow Factor: Having their name in the URL is a great way to grab a prospect’s attention. Combine this with customized variable text and images, and your piece just might get read, rather than immediately tossed into the recycling bin.

Better Integration: If you time your mailing to sync up with efforts in other media, a PURL can help you better integrate campaigns across multiple channels.

Measurability: You can tell if someone has visited “their” site and set up a trigger-based e-mail blast to hit right after that visit.

But remember, while PURLs are great to have in your arsenal, they’re not a silver bullet. “When PURLs first came out, people thought that the prospect’s name [in the URL] was enough to drive someone to a site,” says Himsworth. “Now, the offer is critical. It needs to be part of a strong strategy.”

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