How much junk mail pops up in your mailbox each week?

I’m not talking about the carefully edited pile of mail your secretary lays on your desk every morning. Or the pile that mysteriously pops up from the mailroom the minute your back is turned.

I’m talking about the growing mountain of paper that you deal with every night when you get home, after the day is done, when you’re so tired you can barely see straight and your to-do list stretches long into the night.

It has long been my belief that the people who traditionally design direct mail campaigns are under the impression that people read their mail the way dedicated employees scan the morning blogs at work. They carefully wade through the muck to find the pearls buried beneath the swine.

What they forget is that when you’re a B2C company, consumers are looking at your direct mail on their own time. They’re not getting paid for this, so they’re under no obligation to give you the consideration you deserve.

Time to ramp up your A-game, ladies and gentlemen. Your direct mail marketing campaign isn’t doing you any good if it’s going straight into the recycling bin. With that in mind, here are a few ideas to make your direct mail pieces interesting enough to rescue them from a life of anonymity:

1)      Make them colorful. White envelopes fade into the background. Don’t be afraid to go with green, or yellow, or red-something that’s going to catch their eye and bring them in for a second look.

2)      Handwrite their address. Nobody takes the time for a personal touch anymore. My vehicular repair specialist always addresses their envelopes by hand. Not one of their mailings has ever gone unopened.

3)      Don’t buy into tricks like “highly confidential” or “open ASAP or else…”. This strategy worked great 15 years ago. Nowadays, if an envelope shows up marked highly confidential that didn’t come from my bank, my loan manager or my doctor’s office, it goes in the trash before another word gets read. I know I’m not the only one.

4)      Put your value proposition right on the front. “Annual Halloween Sale Starts 10/15!” “New Cars Are Finally Here!” Most people don’t launch a direct mail marketing campaign because they want to remind people they’re still alive. They’ve got something going on, something fresh, something new, and they want to make sure their customers know about it. Put that information front and center.

What are your best tips for getting your customers involved through direct mail marketing?

Tags: direct mail marketing, marketing

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Do you like it when people take your words and post them for the world to see without bothering to tell you about it? Of course you don’t. Nobody does. So why are so many companies doing it?

Later on, we’ll talk about why companies make up testimonials for their customers-and why it’s a really bad idea. The whole point of printing testimonials is, after all, to provide your customers with an honest look at the products and services you provide. Today, let’s take a look at the second step in that process-the unwritten rules of etiquette for obtaining those testimonials in the first place.

Everyone loves to talk. You just have to be willing to listen.

How often do you actually get testimonials from your customers? Sometimes? Always? Once or twice a year?

Here’s a news flash for you. Customers LOVE to talk about their experiences. They’ll talk about them over breakfast. They’ll talk about them over lunch. They’ll talk about them at the water cooler.

If your customers aren’t telling you about their experiences, it’s probably because you’re not giving them a chance. Asking “How did everything go?” is begging to be told, “Fine” as they complete their visit and walk away. Offer comment forms. Ask what the best part of their visit was. Put a pad on your front counter and invite them to write a comment on their way out, or drop it anonymously into a comment box.

Social Media is the Best Source for Obtaining Testimonials You’ll Ever Find

Want to know what your customers think about your business? Take a cruise through Facebook and Twitter. They’re out there, and they’re talking. This is a great way to find out what customers really think.

But…

Ask Before You Post/Print

Before you printing testimonials, or posting them on your website, don’t forget to ask the customer in question if they’re okay with their words going public. Most are going to say yes, but every once in a while you’ll get someone who for one reason or another wants to keep the fact that they’re doing business with you just between you. Printing their testimonials without their permission can permanently damage a beautifully budding relationship.

And…

Consider Keeping Testimonials Anonymous

This is a tricky area for most companies, so it’s really up to you and your customers which way you want to go. Printing the customer’s full name will go a long way toward convincing future customers that you’re not making this stuff up; however, it also eliminates any privacy between you and your clientele. Some will be okay with that. Some will not.

There’s another perk to keeping testimonials anonymous, especially when you’re working in the B2B arena. If you print a testimonial that gives the company name and the name of your contact, you’ve just handed your competition a list of your clientele. You didn’t really mean to do that, did you?

I didn’t think so.

When done right, printing testimonials goes a long way toward giving your business the authentic reputation it deserves. How are you making testimonials work for you?

Tags: Business, direct mail marketing, marketing, printing, testimonials

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Are you reading this in a coffee shop while you get your Saturday morning fix? Perfect. I want you to do something for me. Raise your hand if you’re a social media maven. Keep it up. Hold it…hold it…Now, before they turn around I want you to take a quick head count and see who’s looking at you like you’ve lost your mind. Got a number?

...and only you can make your customers want to hear what you have to say.

Guess what? If you open your mouth right now and each and every one of those people is going to hear what you have to say.

On the other hand, if you’re quietly, steadily muttering to yourself hunched over your desk all day long, people are going to eventually tune you out. Just ask your cleaning crew. If you want people to listen, you have to give them a reason.

What Twitter and Direct Mail Marketing Have In Common

Internet marketing might be the biggest game in town right now, but it’s not the only one. With all the similarities out there connecting the world of offline and online marketing, there are some obvious conclusions to be drawn.

Starting with Twitter.

Yesterday I logged on and found 300 different links posted to my Twitter feed. Within an hour. If these guys really think I’m going to take the time to read 300 different blog posts and articles, they’ve lost their minds. I scan my Twitter feed for two things-original thoughts (without a URL attached) and catchy headlines that inspire me to take the time to take a look.

Repeat after me: The average consumer sees 5,000 advertising messages each and every day, both online and off. They have a life. They’re not going to take the time to read them all. If you want them to listen, you need to write a headline that’s going to give them a reason.

You need to be the oddball with their hand sticking up in the air.

Tags: direct mail marketing, headlines, marketing, writing headlines

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The best part of my day is easily the hour or so I spend on social media, touching base with customers and fellow industry experts on what’s going on in the wide, wonderful world of marketing, printing and taking your business off the web and out into real life. And do you know what I’ve learned? That today’s marketers have been bitten by the automation bug.

Virtual reality is plagued with marketing bots, and their presence in offline reality is starting to become a real problem.

No, not that kind of bot.

What’s the Problem with Bots?

When automation for social media was first invented, marketers thought it was the coolest thing ever. They could send out automated direct messages, have bots trolling the web for mentions of their company/industry and generally maximize their reach with a minimum of effort. Great idea, right?

Sure it is…until you remember that social media was never truly meant to be a marketing medium. Building a reputation for your company in the wide world of cyber-socializing is generally considered a qualitative rather than a quantitative endeavor. It’s a chance for you to reach your customers on a more personal level.

While customers were willing to let businesses use this new medium to answer their questions and connect with them one-

THAT kind of bot.

on-one, they were un-amused when companies started spamming their inboxes, Facebook walls and Twitter timelines. Having spent most of my morning wading through bot after bot, I can see where they’re coming from.

The problem is, bots take the personal touch out of marketing. By using what I like to call a plug and chug technology across the board marketers are effectively telling John Q. Public that who he is as a person doesn’t matter. He’s going to hear the exact same message in the exact same way as everyone else…whether he likes it or not.

Avoiding Botting IRL

Botting on the web is an obvious problem. A software steps up, provides the tools, marketers jump on it like a starving pool of piranhas. But you can’t really bot in real life, can you?

Actually, you can-and many direct mail marketing experts do. To understand how this works, and how to avoid it, let’s trace back to plug and chug marketing. In this case, we’re talking about consistently sending a single message out to every single member of your clientele.

Digital printing and variable data have taken all of the excuses out of taking a single marketing message and sending it out to your entire mailing list, regardless of which aspect of your business they’ve expressed their interest in. You have the capability to divide your clientele into subgroups, which can then be reached on a personalized level based on their current relationship with your company.

You have the tools at your fingertips to build a personal relationship with your customers through a tailored, carefully structured direct mail marketing campaign. Why are you wasting that capability by botting away?

Tags: bots, direct mail marketing, facebook, social media, twitter

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“If the scene bores you when you read it, rest assured it will bore the actors, and will, then, bore the audience, and we’re all going to be back in the breadline.” ~ David Mamet, via Copyblogger

For children, all the world is a stage.

Monsters hide around dark corners, dragons lurk in the bushes, knights in shining armor take their place in our living room while we battle bravely against the scourge of goblins invading from far off fairytale lands.

Then we become teenagers, and the world lights up with the untold promise of adulthood. Every moment is filled with drama and excitement, heartbreaking happiness and gut wrenching despair.

When we’re young, our book of stories floweth over. When we become adults, however, we eschew fairytales and dramatic monologues for schedules and cold hard fact, trading enthusiasm for carefully crafted sales pitches and personal connections for third party anonymity.

Why? Because somebody told us that’s the way it should be.

Already he has the skills he needs to be a budding young entrepreneur.

The Information Age is Over? Blasphemy!

Well, it might not be as blasphemous as you think. Information is pouring out of every nook and cranny of the Internet these days. Blogger Tim Challies described the phenomenon as infobesity. Catherine Collins, spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association, described it as being “so informed that we can’t be bothered.”

People have no shortage of information out there waiting for them. What they’re short on is something that’s going to touch them enough to penetrate the shield they form to keep all the information out.

They want something they can relate to.

Something that will catch their interest.

Something that applies to their lives.

Everything You Need to Know About Marketing, You Learned in Kindergarten

Wait, what?

Yep, that’s right. Everything you needed to know to put the icing on your marketing campaign, you learned in Kindergarten.

~If you’re excited, your friends will be too.

~Getting your hands dirty makes everything more fun.

~Never let anything sit on a shelf. Get it down and use it!

~The more fantastic and outlandish your stories are, the more your people will listen and the less they    will believe.

~Bright colors are more exciting than black and white,

~If you want to catch someone’s eye, play with your cool toy. If you want to make a friend for life, let them play with it too.

Tags: Business, direct mail marketing, marketing

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Why would you spend the time and energy to launch a direct mail marketing campaign? Because you love sitting around designing materials? Because it makes you smile to know you’re in every mailbox across town?

Because you want to attract new customers?

If you’re leaning toward option 3, show them what you’re selling!

A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words-Literally

You can spend all day telling someone about your products. If you can get them to stand still that long. You’ll catch their interest faster, have fewer sore throats and be more likely to secure the sale if they can actually see them.

Visual stimuli can capture any customer's interest-even his.

There’s a reason it’s called show and tell, after all.

**On an interesting side note, a study into consumer buying habits showed that customers are willing to pay more if a product is right in front of them. So brick and mortar stores may still have the advantage after all.**

Design Your Postcard Back to Front?

Here’s a thought for you. How do you create your postcards?

Conventional wisdom tells us to make the front bright and brilliant to catch their attention, then put our information and the address on the back.

BUT…

Your friendly neighborhood mailman is more interested in getting the right mail in the right box than he is about which way your card is facing. If the address is on the back, that’s the first thing your customers are going to see when they take it out of their mailbox.

Where am I going with this? If the first thing your customers see is the back of the postcard, the back of the postcard needs to be where they “see” your product. Design the back with the same zealous attention to detail you showed on the front. Hook their attention. Lure them in.

It takes a little more time and effort than you may have put into your direct mail marketing campaign before, but your increased ROI is more than worth it!

Tags: designing direct mail postcards, direct mail marketing, graphic design, marketing, printing

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Halloween on Friday, Christmas on Monday. Yep, the holidays are here. My sister’s already called to let me know I’m hosting dinner Christmas Eve at my place. My father’s asking for the kids’ Christmas lists. And our holiday card site is up and running with a vengeance. (Haven’t seen it yet? Check it out here.)

Why We Should Send Holiday Cards

The question most of us ask when the time comes to send holiday cards is, “Why?” It doesn’t matter what holiday it is. It doesn’t matter who we’re sending Thanksgiving/Christmas/Valentine’s Day/Birthday cards out to. It just doesn’t make sense that a piece of paper with some words and a stamp would make that big of a difference one way or the other.

Or does it?

Let me clue you in here. I spent most of my life being an avid hater of holiday cards or all shapes and sizes, then I got a certified wake-up call. Holiday cards actually play a huge role in the continued health and well-being of our business and social lives…and whether or not your brother’s going to save you a seat at Christmas dinner or hand your space over to the dog! (Hypothetically speaking…) Your customers will move on to companies that value their business.

When you send a holiday card, what you’re really doing is saying:

1) I remember you.
2) I want you to remember me.
3) I took the time to make and mail this card to make sure you know you’re more to me than just another name and number on a sheet of paper.

Pretty cool, huh? All of that, wrapped up in one small piece of paper and tied with a bow.

Yes, the Holidays are Busy, but…Holiday Cards are the One Thing You Can’t Afford to Forget

How to Add a Call to Action to Your Holiday Cards

Adding a call to action to your personal holiday cards is easy. All you have to do is put, “Call me some time. We’ll do dinner!” on top of your signature and you’re gold. But what about your business? How do you add a call to action to holiday cards for your business without being tacky about it?

Ask Hallmark. Or Toys R Us. Seriously. The two retail giants have holiday card marketing down to a fine art form. Since my son and I both have birthdays this month I’ve received plenty of mail from both of them, complete with “Too Good to Be Forgotten” coupons for the 30 days before and after the big event. Which is why Saturday found me wandering around a Hallmark store like a mindless drone looking for the best way to reinvest my $10 coupon.

That ornament’s gonna look great on my Christmas tree.

So order your holiday cards (soon), personalize them to your target market and pick a great value proposition to toss inside. Then sit back and see what happens.

Holiday cards, invitations and birthdays and more, oh my! If you haven’t already, check out our snazzy holiday card shop at East Ridge Printing!

Tags: birthday cards, business birthday cards, business holiday cards, Christmas, christmas cards, customer relations, direct mail marketing, holiday cards, Thanksgiving

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When you’re knee deep in digital printing projects all day long, it’s easy to forget that not everyone is going to know whether they should go with digital printing or bob and weave to the sounds of a traditional offset press. With that in mind, and the sound of the digital printer whirring in my ear, I thought I’d kick off the week with a quick run-down of the pros and cons of digital printing.

The Pros:

1) It’s cheap-relatively speaking. Since all the cost is upfront with offset printing, up to a certain point you’re going to pay a lower price per piece for digitally printed products.

2) You wind up with considerably less waste. One of my absolute favorite things about digital printing is the fact that you can print your pieces to order. So while you may pay more per piece to order 300 instead of 1,000, you won’t find yourself throwing away 700 brochures/flyers/guidebooks because they’re outdated either.

3) Personalization isn’t as far away as you think. Have you ever heard of variable digital printing, or variable data printing? Welcome to the power of the digital press. Insert your customer’s names and account numbers, personalize entire paragraphs and send out custom pieces to your entire mailing list with the press of a button.

4) Professional appearance without the professional cost. Remember how we said digital printing was cheap? The best thing about digital printing is that you sacrifice absolutely nothing in terms of quality, so small business owners can look as professional as a Fortune 500 corporation.

The Cons:

1) More cost per piece. Offset presses are designed to run huge volumes of printed products at one time, which means that once you creep past that 1,000 pieces+ mark you may pay less on a per piece basis than you would using a digital press.

2) Fewer mediums. Digital printing presses are quickly catching up to offset presses in terms of what they can and can’t print on, but we’re not there yet! So if you want to print on wood, rock or cloth, an offset press may be your best bet. For a few more years, anyway…

3) Um…um…nope, I’ve got nothing!

What do you love/dislike/despise about digital printing?

Tags: digital printing, digital variable printing, direct mail marketing, offset printing, personalization, variable printing

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Update your mailing list.

Update your mailing list.

Update your mailing list.

Take the words, set them to the tune of “MMMBop”, and you’d have the theme song for today’s direct mail marketing industry. (Seriously. Try it. It works. Eerily well.) Updated mailing lists are important to make sure your direct mail marketing materials are still going out to people who want to hear what you have to say.

What no one ever bothers to tell you is that while updated mailing lists are good, wrong addresses can be even better.

Why?

When someone moves away, someone else moves into their house. That someone sees your marketing materials. Another lead, another potential sale. Didn’t cost you a thing.

Where will your envelope go?

I Never Have to Update My Mailing List Again?

No, we didn’t say that. It’s important to stay on top of changes in your marketing processes. No point in selling software built for real estate agents to a computer programmer, or baby clothes to a professional couple without children. Sure, you might get a sale or two out of sheer dumb luck. Everyone has to buy a birthday present some time. But your ROI won’t be as high as it could be.

So yes, you have to update your mailing list from time to time. But if a wrong address slips in from time to time, don’t panic. Appreciate it for the underdeveloped opportunity that it is.

Tags: business marketing, direct mail marketing, mailing list, marketing strategy, offline marketing

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If you write the way you talk, and the way you talk doesn’t sell, how does anyone write copy for their direct mail marketing materials?

You learn (fast) how to get really good at proofreading for more than punctuation.

There’s nothing like writing copy to inspire humility to deliver a slap upside the head. I like to think I’m a fairly proficient

Proofreading: The fine, thin line between a direct mail marketing campaign that works and one that's going up in flames.

copywriter. Blogs, white papers, short stories, web content, video scripts…you name it, I wrote it. What I hadn’t done much of, however, was write copy for direct mail marketing materials. That’s been a whole new ball game, and like any new ball game it comes a whole new set of rules, which is why as soon as this post is finished I have to go delete an entire file and start all over again.

The good news is, once you know the rules, you can learn how to play!

Rule Number 1: Don’t say what you don’t mean.

Forget about double meanings, entendre, interpretation and reading between the lines. If you say it, your customers will assume you meant it just the way they read it. Your customer service team isn’t going to be happy if they have to pick up the slack.

Rule Number 2: Brevity is key.

Direct mail marketing materials have 3 seconds to catch your customers’ attention and less than a minute to keep it. You need to make your point and make it fast. Back story? What back story? That’s what your website is for.

Rule Number 3: If you don’t tell them to do it, they’re not going to do it.

You’ll be really, really sick of hearing people talk about a “call to action” before the end of your copywriting career. Don’t give in to the urge to stuff a sock in their mouth just to shut them up. If you don’t tell your customers to do it, they’re not going to do it. It really is as simple as that.

How did you do?

Take these rules and apply them to the last piece you wrote. How did you do? Were you close, or did you end up having to start all over again? If it’s sitting in the bottom of the trash can, congratulations. You’ve mastered the hardest part of copywriting-knowing when it’s time to throw it all out and just start over.

**Image created by Jeff Bucchino, www.WizardofDraws.com**

Tags: Copywriting, direct mail marketing, marketing, proofreading

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