Category Archives: Direct Mail

Winning New Customers with Direct Mail

Posted on by

 “The moMailBoxre things change, the more they stay the same.”

When it comes to attracting new customers, this famous epigram perfectly describes the process. New tools like social media represent the changes, while the fundamentals of customer service and outreach using direct mail remain the same.

The primary objective of customer service is to keep customers coming back. A satisfied customer has no incentive to look elsewhere for the product or service you provide and will, therefore, return to purchase again. A satisfied customer might also provide a recommendation to others to use your business or provide a referral to your business.

Truly great customer service is invisible to the customer. It is the framework for all transactions, but is never in the forefront. Your customer places an order and it is fulfilled on time, as ordered, and at the agreed-upon price. This kind of dependability – meeting customer expectations consistently and quietly – is the ultimate customer service experience and trumps the occasional above-and-beyond effort needed to solve an unexpected problem or respond to an emergency. If you are great at performing in a crisis but inconsistent in day-today performance, you are not delivering a great customer experience.

Remarkable customer service begins when you enhance quietly consistent routine performance with extra touches – anticipating the customer’s needs, turning a job around on an impossible deadline, or providing a creative solution to a problem. Remarkable customer service creates future business.

More…

Engage Your Readers With… Effective Headlines

Posted on by

HeadlineSMWhen you are writing a marketing communication piece – print ad, sales letter, direct mail piece, brochure, blog entry, press release, newsletter, webinar – where do you start? You may be surprised to learn that experts advise starting at the top by writing the headline.

The headline is your promise to readers, a statement of what they can expect if they continue reading. Promises are first made, and then fulfilled. So make the promise to readers through the headline, and fulfill it in the content.

The importance of headlines is not a new concept. Writing in 1923 in his book Scientific Advertising, Claude Hopkins said, “We pick out what we wish to read by headlines.” Forty years later, in his 1963 book Confessions of an Advertising Man, advertising legend David Ogilvy wrote “On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents of your dollar.” Continuing today, busy people decide what to read on web pages, e-mail or blogs based the strength of the headline.

More…

Let’s Keep in Touch… Six Ways to Stay in Contact

Posted on by

dv1492011Marketing experts agree: the basis for developing new business, whether new work from an existing customer or the first job from a prospect, is to communicate with them. Experts also agree that the more different kinds of communication tools a business or organization uses, the more efficient the outreach and the more likely it is to successfully reach the person targeted. Relying on only one or two methods to make contact is risky when the person you want to reach has voice mail and the “delete” command to avoid phone calls and e-mail, and may not participate in all forms of social media. To help you improve your chances of having a successful communication, we offer six ways to contact customers and prospects.

More…

Consistent, Relevant, and Beneficial Marketing Materials

Posted on by

Businesses todmarketing_smay have an immense arsenal of marketing materials, ranging from printed material (business cards, brochures, product and service flyers, newsletters, and direct mail marketing pieces) to digital formats (web sites, web-based marketing, and social media). While there is significant potential power in having so many ways to reach customers and prospects, this comes with a responsibility to align all the materials with their interests and behaviors. Marketing materials now bear the burden of being consistent, relevant, and beneficial to the intended audience. As marketing guru Seth Godin puts it, “In a world of too many options and too little time, our obvious choice is to just ignore the ordinary stuff.”

More…

Economies of Scale… Marketing with Postcards

Posted on by

Postcard_smallA postcard mailing campaign, properly planned and carried out, is an efficient and cost effective way to market to customers and prospects. Less time-consuming and costly to produce than a brochure or folded self-mailer, a postcard is more affordable, yet no less effective. Whether your objective is business promotion, product or service advertising, brand identity, donation solicitation, or a service or event reminder, a postcard gets the job done efficiently and cost-effectively.

Because postcards don’t require opening for the message to be seen, they have an impact even on those who don’t actively engage with them. A well-designed postcard has the main message in plain view and catches the reader’s eye with a strong headline or graphic, resulting in a high read rate. Although a postcard typically — though not always — has less space to deliver the message than a self-mailer, the postcard’s reach can be extended by referring to a website for more details. Postcards have a longer “shelf life” than e-mail, and are easy to file for future reference.

More…

A USPS Partnership… Brings Direct Mail Success

Posted on by

MailBoxUSPSAn active direct mail program is more than the offer, the printed piece, and the mailing list. It is also the United States Postal Service (USPS) delivering the mail piece to the intended target. We admit that it can sometimes be hard to understand and follow the rules set down by the USPS to qualify for postage discounts. But we also recognize that without the USPS, direct mail campaigns would be more expensive and possibly less effective.

More…

USPS EDDM… Direct Mail Made Easy

Posted on by

MailLadyIn our last issue of Printips, we discussed the viability of direct mail as a marketing tool and presented the elements that make up a successful direct mail marketing campaign.
In this issue we are introducing a simple
first-step campaign for businesses that are new to direct mail or have a smaller budget. The program is called Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM), and it does just what its name implies — the letter carrier delivers your direct mail piece to every single active address in a neighborhood along with the rest of the day’s
mail.

Here’s what makes EDDM different from regular direct mail marketing:
• you don’t have to put an address on the mail piece, and
• the postage rate is the lowest one offered by the USPS — currently about 15 cents per piece mailed.
So in addition to saving between 40% and 70% on postage, there is no need to spend money on purchasing a mail list, checking the names and addresses for deliverability, or affixing labels.

More…

Direct Mail… Your Additional Salesperson

Posted on by

mailbox_loresHere is an easy way to add an extra salesperson to your marketing staff: develop an ongoing direct mail marketing campaign. While the goal of advertising is to create brand awareness and a connection to potential buyers, direct mail marketing aims to motivate a prospect to take action and complete a transaction. A carefully planned and executed direct mail campaign can do just that.

Today more companies are turning to direct mail. According to research conducted by IBIS World and published in its October 2012 report Direct Mail Advertising in the U.S., direct mail is expected to grow 1.4% annually in the next five years. This is in contrast to the 1.2% contraction direct mail has averaged since 2008. Part of this is due to incentives provided by the United States Postal Service (USPS), such as direct mail that includes QR codes and Every Door Direct Mail.

In its 2011 Channel Preference Study, Epsilon Targeting found that direct mail is the top choice of consumers for receiving brand communications, even among 18-34 year olds. Other interesting findings include:
• 26% of U.S. consumers and 30% of Canadians said direct mail is more trustworthy than email;
• 50% of U.S. consumers and 48% of Canadians said they pay more attention to postal mail than email;
• 30% of U.S. consumers said they’re receiving more mail that interests them compared to a year ago, and just 50% (down from 63% in 2010) said more information is sent to them in the mail — indicating marketers are improving targeting efforts;
• The perception that reading email is faster declined among U.S. email account holders to 45% in 2011 (from 47% in 2010), suggesting clogged inboxes are draining time.

More…

The 3 Essential Elements of Direct Mail Marketing

Posted on by

200394313-001Despite the popularity of e-marketing — e-mail campaigns, SMS messaging, and social media — direct mail is still a proven way to generate new business from existing customers and identify potential new customers from among prospects. Used correctly, direct mail can generate leads, communicate with customers, build name recognition or brand awareness, and build traffic.

A strong direct mail program is built on three essential elements. In this issue of Printips, we’ll explain the importance of each one.

More…