Direct mail campaigns are a powerful resource for any business. Not only are they highly targeted, measurable and flexible, they are also easy to personalize and cost effective. The tips below will help you get your direct mail campaign on the right track for a great return on your investment.

1. Research Your Target Market – Knowing who you are selling to is one of the most critical steps in direct mail advertising. Since your research shapes the rest of your decisions, it’s important to understand your target market from the start. Research tools such as data lists are useful at helping you make better decision.

2. Remember Important Components – Every direct marketing message needs to have three basic elements: an offer, reduced risk, and a clear call to action. If you aren’t offering something, the likelihood that people will respond to your piece is very low. Another important component of a successful direct mail piece is offering reduced risk to recipients. Whether that means a money-back guarantee, a free trial or reduced cost, reducing the risk will increase conversions. The last component is a direct call to action. Your direct mail piece should offer a clear call to action and provide multiple ways for recipients to respond to your offer.

3. Use Your Printing Company’s Mailing Service – This will help you to save time and money because your advertisements will go from the press to the mail. Printers also utilize bulk mail rates, which will cut your mailing costs.

4. Test your Advertisements – Use a short run first and keep track of how many people contact you and actually make a purchase. If you’re not getting the results you expected study your direct mail piece for possible weaknesses and make changes as needed. This will save you a lot of money in the long run so remember to keep testing as your campaign can always be made stronger.

5. Remember to Follow Up – An appropriate follow up with an important customer can be the extra little nudge they need to choose your company over a competitor. Use a phone call or personal note to help sway their decisions.

Originally posted on blog.oneims.com

With the high cost of advertising, small companies need to uncover a way to sell their items or services in the most economical way doable. Direct mail advertising is the perfect advertising strategy for tiny businesses since of its affordability and effectiveness. Corporate stationery can be reproduced at a really reasonable price through letterhead and envelope printing services.

The purpose of direct mail advertising is not limited to just promoting your enterprise this strategy can also be used for the following objectives:

Brand Recognition: Sending your own organization stationery is much better than employing generic postcards for your marketing copy. Personalized stationery strengthens your branding efforts. Your corporate stationery contains your brand name, logo, and company colors. These branding elements assist consumers remember who you are. Guarantee brand recognition by placing your logo in a prominent location on your envelopes and letterheads.

Customer Loyalty: Direct mail advertising is a more personal approach for communicating with your customers. This builds customer relationships and increases consumer loyalty. Adding a individual touch to advertising is the greatest way to show customers that you value their enterprise. Send them direct mail in the course of the holidays or to just simply thank them for their continued support.

New Consumers: Your organization need to be able to extend its services to a new pool of customers to allow it to grow and expand. You can do this by asking for referrals or exchanging mailing lists with other companies. Gaining new customers not only rewards your revenue, it also increases your visibility.

Newsletters: Maintain your customers up-to-date with your new merchandise or services, sales, or new store openings. Doing so allows consumers to participate in your company’s milestones or take advantage of your special provides.  Maintaining visibility helps minimize competition.    

Whether you are utilizing direct mail advertising for promotions, news updates, or special greetings, often maintain in mind that your message need to be straightforward, concise, and total. This way you can be certain that you are communicating effectively. Lastly, you ought to be careful in choosing the right printing company to print envelopes and letterheads for your marketing campaign to guarantee high-quality.

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Originally posted on txcsl.org

Very few things in life are ever perfect the first time around, and this is even more so the case when it comes to marketing – there are always little tweaks that can be made to generate more exposure and close sales. As Bigger Pockets recently suggested, small business owners should always be looking to improve on their direct mail marketing initiatives.

The best way to this is through split testing, which in the case of direct mail means splitting a list into two and then sending different components to each list. For example, if an entrepreneur wanted to experiment with different calls to action, he or she could send one postcard to the first group and another to the second group. Whichever gets more responses should be the one the company uses.

“In the end, it really doesn’t matter how you track your results, but never again, should you send out a letter without tracking the response. If you start to do this today, in just a few months you should be able to determine the best letter in your ‘arsenal’ and increase the number of deals you do very quickly,” the website explains.

There is no limit to what a company tests – different ad copy, images and print materials are all good places to start. Once the company finds a strategy that makes a return on investment, then they should switch to that format.

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Originally posted by Mark Haslan on overnightprints.com

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

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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QR Codes are being talked about in the world of Direct Mail, Direct Marketing, retail sales, insurance sales, real estate, or any other industry where a new way to connect to a consumer is a good idea.

www.tri-win.com

Look! A QR Code. Follow it to go to our home page.

I have seen more posts regarding what they are and how “x” company can integrate this wonderful new technology to leverage your ROI and increase your response rate in your targeted sector of demographic focus… bleh. The short explanation is this: QR Codes are an everyday part of life for Smartphone users who pay attention to new tech.  Soon they will simply be an everyday part of life, so it is in every marketer’s best interest to learn about them, and use them. It is not in every marketer’s best interest to spend three days reading article after article to learn about them so I am going to speed up the learning process.  This post compiles information from a bunch of different sources and present it here in way that you can read the bits you are interested in and ignore the bits that you already know. Plus, I will even site sources that I use so you can get more information on a specific topic. Guess what kids, learning how to write a research paper in college was worth something in the real world.

“What is” with a little “how to”…

Let’s start from the beginning. A QR Code is a bar code . Similar to the UPC Code you will find on any product in your local grocery store with a couple of important differences, data storage and readability. A UPC code is read in one dimension, laterally, and can hold about 30 American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) characters.  A QR code is read in 2 dimensions, laterally and horizontally holding much more information, up to 7,089 characters including ASCII, binary, kanji, and kana. It’s the added dimension that lets a QR Code hold so much more information and do some of the very cool things that it can do. I’ll talk about the “can do” a little later now let’s talk about the how to.

Scan it. Seriously to activate a QR Code all you need to do is point a smart phone with the correct reader application installed at the paper, billboard, television screen, or computer monitor where the code is displayed and scan it. Not all QR Code readers work the same, nor will they handle data the same way. The QR Code industry is in need of some standardization but until that happens your best option is to search for “QR Code Reader” in your favorite application market and pick a reader that looks good to you. Most new smart phones come with a QR Reader installed.  I use a smart phone with an Android operating system and the preinstalled reader was called Goggles. I don’t believe iphone has a reader preinstalled but you can get a reader application free. I installed I-nigma on an iphone 4 and Neoreader on an iphone 3 over the last few weeks.  The above mentioned readers are not the only readers just the ones that I have used personally, and are not endorsed by this blog or the QR reader association of America… blah blah blah…

Once you have the reader installed, launch the application, use the smart phone’s camera to display the QR code on the screen and either snap a picture or, depending on the application, the QR Code may be recognized automatically. Goggles needs you to snap a picture I-nigma will react when you get the code positioned inside the frame displayed on the screen.  After your smart phone reads the code then it will react based on the information contained in the code, and do what it can do.

Now about that “Can Do”…

Right now there are two major uses for QR codes. The most common use is directing the phone’s browser to a web page of some kind, just like the one at the beginning of this post.  Encode a URL as a QR Code then scan it with your smart phone. Your phone will open its browser and point you to the website. This is nice for a couple of reasons. First it saves the consumer the hassle for typing in a URL by hand. I know it’s a small thing but simple is usually better in all things. Second it lets them visit the website immediately while your marketing actions are fresh in their mind.

The second big use right now, and one of my favorites, is the QR Code business card.

demo QR vCard

Fake business card

This is usually done by creating a V-Card, or meCard, then translating that code to a QR Code format. You can embed your name, address, phone, email, website and more in a QR so that a user can scan the code and get all the information entered into your contacts automatically. You don’t need to worry about losing a business card again. Just losing your phone, and frankly you are going to have bigger problems to worry about if that happens. Notice how their are a lot more squares in this code than the on above. The more information you put in the code the bigger it gets so don’t try to encode your entire company directory at one time.

There are other things that QR Codes can do. Lots of other things:
• Browse to a Website (as noted above)
• Bookmark a website
• Make a phone call
• Send a text message (SMS)
• Send an e-mail
• Create a vCard (also noted above)
• Create a meCard (I noted this above as well, pay attention!)
• Create a vCalander Event
• Google Maps
• Bing Maps
• Geographical Coordinates
• Android Market Search
•Youtube URL for Iphone
• Encode the Latest Tweet of a User
• Tweet on Twitter
• Twitter Profile Image Overlay
• Create a Blackberry Messenger user
• WiFi network for Android
• Free formatted text
• Taking payments (this was not noted above, I will explain this later)

How about a little more “how to”…

Even with all the things that QR Codes can do they are surprisingly easy to create. There are a number of websites that will help you create a QR Code ( look a list of QR Code Generators!) Keep in mind one generator is not a good as another. My personal recommendation for QR Code generator of the afternoon is http://keremerkan.net/qr-code-and-2d-code-generator/ . I used Kerem Erkan’s generator to create all the QR Codes listed in this post. It has a very simple interface and lets you control file output and the color of the code. Surprise! QR codes don’t have to be black and white.

QR Art…

Warning: I am a designer by trade so I may get a little over excited about this bit. You do not have to slap an ugly QR Code on well designed media. QR Codes are just now going main stream so they tend to be the focus of the media they are included in. Big black and white squares positioned right in your face.  For now this makes sense since the marketers using them tend to need to educate their audience on what they are and how to use them. As they become more common they will become something people will look for, like a web address, allowing designers to integrate functional QR art seamlessly with their design. Just because they are traditionally black and white does not mean they should be. QR codes:

• Can be any color
• Can be any modular material
• Must have at least 55% contrast between the foreground and the background
• Should have a margin or “quiet space” of 4 units
• Need to have clear detection patterns in the corner
• Can have up to 30% of the code obscured if you use the highest error correction
• Can be read with any orientation
• Can put it in perspective
• Can be anamorphic (widescreen)
• Can have the cell shape distorted
• Can have the interior made of circle or other shapes
• can have the design reversed.

free Text QR Code

Nothing of interest in this QR Code

 

 

If I have your head spinning with all the QR possibilities I suggest looking at Erica Glaser’s post about QR Design. I found 80% of all my information about QR design on her blog. Or if you still want more look here for some very creative uses of QR Codes

Why…

Why would anyone want to use a QR Code? Because there are benefits to using QR codes. For the user, aka, the consumer, or the reason you are getting your paycheck, QR Codes are simple.  Seriously, its point and click, how much easier can it get? If you are concerned about the learning curve I have shown nearly a dozen people how to use QR Codes in the last three weeks. As soon as I show them how to install a QR Code Reader on their smart phone the three minutes of lessons are over and they start scanning ever QR Code they see. I know this is true because they bring me all the printed material they find with QR Codes on it. OR they walk up to me with their phone and tell me to scan the image of the QR code that they have displayed on their screen.

Yup this QR Code is made of sand

A QR Code adds an element to print media that will get people to interact in a way never before possible. In the past print media drove people to the web by putting a URL on the paper. If the marketer was lucky the consumer remembered to look up the website when they got home. With a QR Code your magazine ad, newspaper article, t-shirt, button, coffee mug, billboard, etc, becomes interactive at the time your viewer is looking at the advertisement.
You can change the content of a QR Code after it’s printed. No, you can’t change the ink on the paper but you can change the web site the QR Code it pointing to. Since QR Codes that resolve to a URL point customers to mobile-friendly websites you can change the website all you want without changing the print. Update quantities, add customer reviews, list your new line of toe-socks, and everyone who scans the QR Code will see your updated information in essence extending the lifespan of print media pieces.

So let us marketers talk about maketing…

For all of us marketing types, one big benefit of using a QR Code is the trackable nature of the technology. QR Codes with the right support behind them can give you an incredible amount of data: where the code was scanned, what time, what kind of phone was used. Even if you don’t have a budget for fancy metrics you can still get great details about who is scanning the code with Google Analytics and a little creativity. Let’s say you are branding coasters with your company’s newest line of beer, and distributing the coasters to 8 different bars. If you build 8 different landing pages that look identical, and embed landing page one’s URL onto the coasters that get distributed to bar one, and no other coasters get send to that bar, you know that every time someone visits landing page one they were at bar one. Maybe you are sending a direct mail piece and you want to test three different versions of art? Use three different landing pages, and three different QR Codes. Use one code per version of art. You will get some good data, and every consumer will get the same online experience.

This is a tool…

QR Codes are tools and they are not marketing in and of themselves. Well they are new enough now that they market to the techie crowd just by being used, but that will not last. There a some things that can be done to get people to use the QR Codes

Educate the consumer. For now a little bit of education will go a long way. Many people with smart phones still don’t know what a QR Code is. That will change. For now a brief how to” is a good thing.

Tour of Tri-Win Digital Print and Mail Services

Scan this QR Code to get a tour of our building.

Let the consumer know what to expect when they scan a QR Code. If the QR Code links to a video simply say “scan this QR Code to view our video.” Seriously, this QR code does link to a video tour of our facility.

Most importantly give them something new! Don’t just link to a digital image of the ad give them new content. You could create a 2 part ad and link to the other half of the video, or offer them a chance to sign up for an email list. Hey, you could just offer them 10% off their next purchase because they scanned your QR Code. As long as there is more information after they scan the code that is the important part.

Is this just another tech fad…

Yes, it is another tech fad but it is more than that too. There are some large corporations who are adopting the QR Code as part of a daily shopping experience.

Macy’s is using QR codes. They launched a new service called “Macy’s Backstage Pass” that will provide consumers with essential tips,  and information on their latest trends via 30-second films formatted to work on users’ mobile phones. In addition to committing to use the technology Macy’s is also educating consumers with a 30-second TV spot running nationally that shows shoppers how to use the QR Codes and what they will get when they scan them.

Best Buy is using QR Codes. Back in September they added QR Codes to product information tags making them the first national retailer in the US to deploy this technology. Scan the code next to the TV you are thinking of buying and you get access to the product detail page.

Post’s Honey Bunches of Oats is using QR Codes adding them to more than 12 million boxes as the primary distribution vehicle for, “Honey & Joy,” a web based sitcom.

Starbucks is using QR Codes. Letting consumers pay for their coffee is the latest us of QR Code technology. The goal here is to get Starbucks customers to stop using physical Starbucks cards and start using Virtual Starbucks cards. To use the service the customer displays the QR Code on their mobile phone and a reader located at the point of sale scans the code and subtracts the cost of the drink from the funds preloaded on the Starbucks card mobile account.

Home Depot is using QR Codes. Partnering with a mobile barcode platform developer call Scanbuy Home Depot will use QR codes to provide “how to” videos, information about the supplier, appropriate usage guidelines, safety instructions, or anything else Home Depot deems smart phone appropriate. Plus you will also b able to purchase the product using the mobile phone after scanning the QR Code in-store or at home.

But wait QR Codes are not just for retail applications.

New York is using QR Codes. By 2013 all New York City building permits will have a QR Code on them so smart phone users can get details about  the ongoing project or file a complaint regarding safety or noise concerns.

Tokyo is using QR Codes. There was an experiment in Tokyo where QR codes were overlaid on top of a city map.  When the QR Code was scanned the user was given directions to the part of town associated with the QR Code.

The Post Office is Using QR Codes. “Deliver Magazine”, a publication produced by the post office, did a feature article on QR Codes in October, 2010.  Since then they have started using QR Codes in marketing to offer people the ability to get free flat rate shipping kit

What does all of this mean…

I see them popping up all over the place, and I bet you will too now that you know what they are.  They have already taken hold in Japan, they have been in use there for years. While it has only been in the last year or so that QR Codes have started to get the public’s attention they have it now. Plus with it projected that 50% of Americans will have a smart phone by Christmas 2010 the use of QR Codes will only increase. For now integrating QR Codes into your marketing will give you a competitive edge, in a year not integrating them in your marketing will mean you are behind.

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Are you planing on integrating QR Codes into your marketing strategy, or have you already printed them on every thing you own? Let me know, and if you think this post was useful to you link to it, or pass it along to your friends.  Thanks!

With a little bit of help from Direct Mail Beginning to End –Production and a lot of coordination you, your printer, and your designer have created a direct mail piece that is creative direct and won’t make you choose between printing it or making your car payment. Now it’s time to tackle the other major cost of creating your direct mail campaign, postage. Depending on the mailer either your printing or your postage could be your primary cost, and every creative decision you made will affect your postage now.

The size of the piece, the weight, if it folds, how many tabs need to hold the folds in place, if there is an envelope, and how the address is oriented relating to the shape of the mailer are all factors that will affect how much it costs to mail your campaign.  There is no way to begin to scratch the surface of everything you need to know about navigating postal regulations in a blog post, and I am not going to try. The Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) published by the post office is over 1,000 pages. It covers everything you need to know from how the size of your mailer dictates the postal class it will mail in, to the permitted saturation of colors used for printing the background of your address block. While the post office has been kind enough to post it online (note the shiny blue link text) there are so many rules with the mail the only way to be sure you are getting the best rate, short of reading it from cover to cover three times, is to work with a direct mail house. Get an expert (Remember last week I told you I would use that phrase again!)

Lots of printers these days are doubling as mail houses trying to offer a convenient one stop location for direct mail needs. There is nothing wrong with an all in one print house and mail house. It’s convenient, and can save time and money by eliminating the need to ship your printed stock to another location, but be sure they truly understand the mail regulations. I know of one case where a restaurant chain was mailing 2,500 5 3/4” x 11 5/8 mailers a week through a printer who was moonlighting as a mail house. The printer was simply trying to offer a convenience to the restaurant and make a little extra money on the side so it sounds like a good deal, but all postage is NOT the same. After about six months the restaurant chain was approached by sales rep for a mail house who told them that if they changed the size of the mailer to 5 3/4 “ x 11 ½” they would save 0.13 per mailer. Making that change took less than 5 minutes to implement, had no effect on the cost of printing, and no customer noticed the difference saving the restaurant $325.00 a week. The restaurant switched mail houses, and started looking for a new printer.  I don’t know if the designer picked the size of the mailer, or if the printer suggested the size. I do know that no one looked at the specifics of presorted first class letters and presorted first class flats until the direct mail expert talked to the restaurant.

The best intentions can backfire when someone gets involved who doesn’t know what they are doing.  A mail house should know direct mail, and a print shop should know printing. Places that do both printing and mailing should know both printing and mailing.  The designer, the printer, and the mail house should be able to communicate with each to solve problems in the creation process and reduce cost. As the business you might need to be the intermediary unless you find a direct mail company that offers design, print, and mailing as a package, and (I’m going to say it again…) has an expert in each field.

This is the last post in the Direct Mail Beginning to End Series, but it is far from my last post. If you have questions, and you probably do since this series was designed to be an overview of the direct mail process, post them in the comments and I will answer them or I might just write a whole new post based on your questions!

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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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