Personalized Print: 5 Things to Watch

By personalizing your direct mail pieces, you can increase response rates and cart sizes, too. But if you’re new to personalization, the design process can seem intimidating. Here is a short “to do” list of common oversights to watch for.

1. Use the correct data, not more data. The more data you have on your customers, the better. However, more important is being smart about using the information you have. For example, a new mover’s list can be invaluable, especially for small businesses. People moving into the area will need everything from new doctors to new favorite restaurants. Likewise, if someone is graduating from college, they will likely be looking at buying a car, furnishing an apartment, and upgrading their wardrobes. You don’t need lots of data. You just need the correct data.

2. Go long (and short). When designing layouts for your personalized pieces, remember to consider the longest and shortest fields in your database. When personalizing by name, for example, your layout must accommodate “Bob Smith” as well as “Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausen.” Use rules-based design to enable flexibility.

3. Always have a default. No matter how well you prepare your database, you will always have missing information. You’ll have a first but not last name. You’ll know most people’s alma maters, but not all of them. When one of your records is missing an element, you don’t want to end up with “Dear First Name Here” Set your defaults (such as “Dear Valued Customer”) to appear when a piece of data is missing.

4. Tidy up! Keep your database clean and updated. Regularly run postal address updates, remove duplicates, and clean up inconsistencies (for example, some fields may use “Market St.” while others use “Market Street”). Continually invest in the accuracy of your data.

5. Don’t forget the imagery. If you are swapping out images based on demographic or other data, those images must be prepared, as well. Make sure variable images are correctly labeled and sized to fit into the layout. For example, if your design calls for vertical imagery, make sure a horizontal image doesn’t sneak in there. Preparing variable data jobs doesn’t have to be a mystery. A little planning can smooth the process and give you predictable results. You can do it—we can help!

Direct Mail and Social Media: Better Together

Are you planning a multichannel marketing campaign? Automatically assuming you will be pairing direct mail with email? How about pairing direct mail with social media instead? Haven’t thought about it? Maybe you should. What makes direct mail and social media so complementary?

Higher levels of customer engagement, regardless of channel, lead to strong customer loyalty and higher sales—and customers love social media. Print’s tangibility leaves a deeper footprint in consumers’ brains and results in more (and more accurate) recall. So why not pair direct mail and social media together?

While you might not think of direct mail and social media as complementary, data show that they are. High percentages of social media users use direct mail coupons, hold on to direct mail pieces for future use, and visit a store after receiving a mail piece. When brand advocates receive direct mail, they are also 50% more likely to create or share content online.

How can you capitalize on this?

1. Set up social media sites appropriate to your target audience (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and encourage followers to engage with you. When possible, add links to enable direct sales.

2. Focus on deep, relevant content. Tell stories, invite customers to post their own user-generated content, and encourage them to share your posts with friends and family.

3. Find the most active social media participants and gather their email addresses and postal addresses for future cross-channel marketing.

4. Use social media to announce when upcoming mail offers are on their way. Build anticipation and excitement around your promotions and deals.

5. Cross-pollinate your content between social media and direct mail. For example, use quotes from online reviews or social media posts in your direct mailers to give credibility (“social proof”).

Direct mail and social media can be a powerful combination when used right. Need help? Give us a call!

5 Tips for Expanding Your Mailing Reach

1. Look at trade shows.
Trade shows attract a particular target audience, and they generally attract the decision-makers in the company. Attendee lists from trade shows in your market vertical can net you very high-value prospects.

2. Use the media.
Like trade shows, specialty magazines (including trade magazines) have well-defined target audiences, and some will sell their subscriber lists to marketers.

3. Tap your content marketing.
Take advantage of your content marketing efforts.If you offer an e-newsletter, ask for recipients’ street addresses at sign-up. If website visitors can download white papers or case studies, ask them to fill out an online registration form and include their street address as an option.

4. Use Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM).
Every Door Direct Mail from the United Postal Service is an inexpensive way to target households within a specific demographic radius. Although EDDM lists do not include names, you now have qualified leads and names once people respond to your communication.

5. Purchase a cloned list.
Do you already have a productive direct mail list? Just want more customers like the ones you already have? Cloned lists allow you to do just that. Create a profile of your best customers, then purchase an index that reflects that profile. These are all smart, cost-effective ways to build your direct mail list that can yield great results. Need help implementing one or more of these ideas? We can help!

Print Is a Fan Favorite: But Why?

Even in a world of interactive digital media, something irresistibly draws people into the tangible world of paper and ink. But why? What makes people fall in love with print? Here are some of the answers we have come up with. If asked the same question, what would you say?

1. Print is at the center of societal change. From the printing of the Gutenberg Bible in the 15th century to the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist papers in the 18th century, print has profoundly impacted our society. It is part of our history.

2. It enriches us. Print enriches our daily lives from the reproductions of the world’s greatest paintings to the coolest T-shirts.

3. Print aids in comprehension. Studies show that people absorb and retain information more deeply in print than they do in digital media.

4. Print is fun. Print is just enjoyable to have with so many textures, finishes, and embellishments in your hands. It’s one reason that sales of printed books are on the rise even with our society’s addiction to mobile phones. Who wants to read Gone with the Wind on an iPhone?

5. It inspires creativity. There is something about a tangible product that breathes life into ideas. With print, creativity springs eternal.

6. Print preserves moments in time. With so much digital clutter, the tangible presence of books, marketing collateral, and even business cards, print preserves a memory—a moment in time—in ways that digital can’t.  

7. Print is magic. Have you ever seen the inner working of a press? A digital file becomes a printing plate, then millions of tiny dots spring to life on the page as brilliant, high-resolution images. This little miracle is replicated in every print project you order.   

8. Print is fun—and so are we. When you use print, you get to work with us! We’re a great, fun bunch of people who know our stuff and want to help you get the most out of your marketing projects.

So if you love print and we love print, let’s love print together. Give us a call for your next project.

Do You Know How Customers Really Feel About You?

Think you know how your customers feel about you? So do three-quarters of companies. Yet a survey by Zogby Analytics finds that, while 73% of companies say they are “very aware” of their customers’ level of satisfaction with them, 36% of consumers say that companies are either “unaware” or “completely oblivious.”  That’s a big gap!

Furthermore, Zogby found that companies believe that “providing better informed and relevant customer conversations” (29%) is the best thing they can do to keep customers happy. Meanwhile, customers say “identifying common issues and resolving them” (32%) and “being aware of the interactions with the company, and resulting feedback” (29%) are the most important.

These are considerable gaps in expectations, and if companies aren’t careful, those gaps can create opportunities for competitors.

What’s the answer? Be intentional about soliciting customer feedback to identify what you are doing well and where you might be missing the boat. If you are missing the boat, find out how customers want you to fix it.

When was the last time you sent a customer survey? There are many ways to get that request in front of your customers. Add QR Codes to your direct mail pieces, in-store signage, and other locations to lead to online surveys. Create personalized URLs for your direct mail pieces. Use pop-up surveys on your website.  Even use text to send survey links. Customers will appreciate you asking.

Offer free gifts, entry into sweepstakes, and other incentives to encourage participation, as well. Customer feedback is invaluable, and it’s worth your time and investment to get.

Need help developing customer surveys? Talk to us about the many different channels you can use and how to get the most out of your investment.

Do You Know These 5 Loyalty Behaviors?

If you want to know whether your customers are loyal, there are five places you can look. These behaviors, called “loyalty behaviors,” are like breadcrumbs that customers leave that tell you whether they are loyal to you… or not. These are five behaviors you want to excel in! How would your company fare in each?

1. Repeat purchases.
Do you track your customers’ purchases? Do you know if they continue to buy from you after the first sale? If customers are not coming back, do you know why?

2. Recommendations.
Do your customers recommend you to their friends and family? Have you ever asked? A simple print or email survey can tell you a lot.

3. Forgiveness.
If a mistake comes to your attention, be quick to apologize and make things right. Send a letter (always a card or letter—email apologies fall short), offer a “we’re sorry” discount, or make things right another way. Use mistakes as a chance to deepen, rather than disrupt, the customer relationship.

4. Trust.
Here is another place surveys can play an important role. Ask customers to rate how much they trust you on a sliding scale. Create different scales for different areas of your company (products, service, customer care). If you rank low in some areas, you know where to get to work.

5. Willingness to try new things.
Happy, loyal customers buy more, and the more loyal they are, the more they buy over time. If you track your customers’ purchases, you can suggest upsells and cross-sells and alert them to new offerings based on what they have purchased in the past.

Customer loyalty is serious business. Knowing these five loyalty behaviors gives you a head start on where and how to focus your efforts to communicate with your customers and keep them happy, satisfied, and buying more.

Don’t Send Your Next Mailing Until You Read This

Getting ready to launch your next mailing campaign? Stop! Even if you’ve got the correct list, the right variables for personalization, and a “knock your socks off” design, don’t forget to double-check your content. Too often, businesses send the same messaging over and over again, and even if it’s still effective, it gets stale.

Here’s a five-point checklist before you send your next campaign.

1. How many times have recipients seen these images? How many times has your audience seen the same image of your storefront? Or your award-winning BBQ? Is it time to take some fresh photos or invest in some new stock photography? Keep it fresh.

2. Is your message the “same old, same old”? Think beyond features and benefits. Sure, you want to talk about the need your product solves, product pricing, and how your products stack up to those of your competitors, but it’s important to address how your products satisfy your customers’ lifestyle needs and emotional triggers, too—and those are constantly changing.

3. Is one discount better than another? What’s your “go-to” call to action? If a customer has been seeing “50% off” for the past two or three mailings, it’s probably stale. So change it up. Try “buy one, get one free.” Even though it results in the same discount, it sounds different to the customer’s ear.

4. Get new testimonials. When was the last time you updated your customer testimonials? If you still use the same ones from one or two years ago, your customers are probably glossing right over them. It’s time to get some new ones!

5. Keep it simple! It’s tempting to overload your direct mailer with everything but the kitchen sink. Trim it down. Use simple images, easy-to-read headlines, and clearly placed calls to action. Don’t create confusion by cluttering things up.

Need help with your next direct mail messaging? Let us offer some ideas and help you test those ideas, so you know that you’re mailing what really works.

5 Insider Marketing Tips for Savvy Marketers

No matter what channel you are using — direct mail or signage, email or print advertising — a great headline grabs the reader and won’t let go. It makes them stop what they are doing and say, “Wait! I need to pay attention to this!”

Here are five “marketing insider” tricks that will increase the stopping power of your headlines.

1. Jolt the reader.

Jolt the reader out of complacency. For example, along one major highway is a billboard with a smiling senior woman and the headline: “I didn’t want my chest cracked open!” The billboard is for less-invasive heart surgery at a local hospital. Such headlines should not be used for the sake of shock value alone, however, but tap into deep emotions and move your audience from complacency to action.

2. Tie into breaking news.

Tying your products and services to current events increases the relevance to your audience and the urgency for them to act. Financial services take advantage of uncertainty in the stock market. Retailers of snow blowers and electric generators tap into predictions of early winter storms. What current events can you tie into?

3. Be an advocate.

Everyone wants an advocate—someone who will look out for them. The message is: We care. This is a technique used to great effectiveness by accident lawyers. “Hurt in an accident? We can help!”

4. Be a name-dropper.

This technique takes advantage of people’s inherent interest in celebrities and inside gossip. You may not know the star personally, but you can use a line from a movie, a TV show, or a newsy interview. For the financial market, it might be a quote from Warren Buffet. From the sports world, it might be LeBron James. In your market vertical, it might be a well-known industry leader.

5. Say, “I get you.”

Share the reader’s frustration. “Don’t you hate it when…?” Then solve their problem. Sharing in their frustration creates identification. Showing that you can solve their problem moves them to action.

Let us help you plan your next direct mail campaign.

Why Do Marketers Love Millennials?

Millennials are one of the most coveted demographics in marketing. These consumers number 92 million (nearly one-quarter of the U.S. population) and spend about $600 billion every year. Because Millennials tend to value experiences over material things, they also tend to have more disposable income than other generations. (According to Statista, Millennials have a mean disposable annual income of $70,000.) When treated right, Millennials also tend to be loyal to the brands they like. They are a valuable market!

Like any other demographic group, Millennials are not homogenous. Many sub-groups think and act differently. Even so, there are some overall qualities of this generation that you should pay attention to. Here are a few that you should keep in mind.

  • Millennials are experienced-focused and time-pressed. Millennials tend to value experiences over “things,” but they are also squeezed for time. Get to the point quickly. Make the shopping experience easy. Focus on convenience. Millennials tend to be willing to pay for convenience options.
  • Millennials spend more time researching their purchases. This group of shoppers grew up with online research. They spend 30 minutes more on research per purchase in certain categories than GenXers do and nearly an hour more than Baby Boomers. So get the information out there for them to find. Be intentional about creating a content marketing plan. Encourage online reviews.
  • They love direct mail but are more likely to buy online. Despite being the original digital generation, Millennials gravitate to direct mail, but they make most of their purchases online (particularly on their phones). Creative, engaging physical mail is highly effective in this demographic but ensure that their online purchase experience is positive, too. ICSC found that 74% of Millennials would switch to a different retailer or brand if they had a negative customer experience.
  • Personalize. Experience-driven and out to change the world, Millennials appreciate the extra effort put into personalized communications. Make them feel special, noticed, and appreciated.
  • Invest. Millennials can be fickle shoppers, and they love a deal. But give them what they want, and Forbes has found that 60% of Millennials are loyal to their favorite brands. According to Yes Lifestyle Marketing, rewards programs are critical to this loyalty.

Millennials are a powerhouse generation, but like any key customer group, they want to be catered to. Invest in them, and they will invest in you.