Margie Dana

The One Time a Direct Mailer Let Me Down

The conference postcards we’d produced to attract attendance that year meant everything to us.

They were expensive to print and more expensive to mail. This was before social media took hold. We counted on direct mail plus email marketing to promote our event.

I presumed my mail person at the printer’s knew her stuff in ways that would not only keep my postage costs down, but also get the thousands of pieces delivered fast.

On this postcard, we offered an Early Bird rate for the conference. The deadline for this discount was approaching. We mailed the postcards First Class Presort.

What happened when the postcards were dropped into the mail stream? They went nowhere fast. We’d seeded our list as always. I remember sweating it out, frustrated for days, stretching into weeks, when we didn’t receive our postcards.

I had to dig to find out where the hold-up was. Someone at the USPS told me that because of the way the cards had been mailed, the post office had X number of days to get them in the mail stream. It was too close for comfort and caused us tremendous stress.

Direct mail campaigns require a subject matter expert – someone who knows the USPS regulations cold, or at least knows enough to find out key information for the customer.

We customers assume the pieces will be delivered with no undue delays, unless, of course, we’re aware of what’s allowable by the USPS. I think this is a reasonable expectation.

When that mailing issue surfaced, I felt blindsided. I didn’t get the advice I needed.

Today, I’m fortunate to know mailing experts like Christine J. Erna, Senior Postal Solutions Architect for Novitex Enterprise Solutions. I asked her how customers can better ensure that their direct mail provider is covering all the bases.

First, she pointed out certain sections on the USPS web site, like the one detailing the USPS Service Standards in 2015. Updated quarterly, these are officially defined as “A stated goal for service achievement for each mail class.” She also shared a link that allows you to enter the zip code of origin and the class of mail. It will show you a map of the service standards based upon these elements. Check it out.

Christine taught me more about “Intelligent Mail. “The USPS has worked hard to gain visibility of all of the mail in their operations. With the advent of the Intelligent Mail Barcode and Full Service Intelligent Mail, you can actually see the scan data of the intelligent mail barcode on your individual mailpieces, and for customers that present their mail as Full Service Intelligent Mail, this data is FREE. Full Service Intelligent mail requires the mail preparer to create a unique serial number for each mailpiece and upload an electronic data transmission of their mailing utilizing a mail.dat file. Industry software generates this and enables the visibility of mailpieces while they’re being scanned throughout the USPS network of mailing equipment.”

Finally, she suggested we ask our service partner questions like these:

Are you a Full-Service Intelligent Mail preparer?
Do you offer IMb Tracing Service with reporting?
Where do you present the mail to the US Postal Service?

What else can customers do? Contact the USPS Mailpiece Design Help Desk. They can review your mailpiece and explain the service standards early in the process. Here’s that number: 1-. Or email them at .

In today’s mailing environment, wrote Christine, you should never have to wonder where your mail is.

What a Waste: Dissecting a Sales Letter that Flopped

Last week as I sat in my home office, my son came up the stairs, knocked to enter, and gave me a letter. It had just arrived in the US mail, and it was hand addressed to me. In script, no less.

Get my immediate attention? You betcha!

Even though I didn’t recognize the sender’s name and address, it must be personal, I thought. It had a first class stamp that was hand applied. Naturally, I opened it right away. (So 10 points for the outside envelope: hand addressing an envelope is a surefire way to get your letter opened.)

Inside was a one-page, pre-printed letter on very nice stationery. There was no loud brand ID anywhere, just the company name and address preprinted in petite type across the bottom. A logo would’ve been nice. What struck me as odd was that there was no date on the letter.

I started reading it, and the first sentence gave it away: this was no personal letter, just a canned sales letter.

The thrill was gone.

I must’ve received it because I signed up for something on the web site (maybe a newsletter?) or merely visited the site. Frankly, I think it’s a smart follow up. But since it didn’t refer to anything specific, I can’t say for sure what prompted the writer to contact me.

You have to be really careful when sending a canned sales letter. It can backfire and do you harm. This letter claimed to help business owners like me take my print shop online.

I don’t have a print shop.

It goes on to say that the sender has taken a look at my business and that she knows how hard printers work.

Again, I am not a printer.

In the end, it was a wasted letter. It would’ve been cheaper for them to send me an email. I wonder how many of these letters went out?

It wasn’t offensive and barely four paragraphs long. But I’m not a candidate for this company’s software solution. However: I do BLOG about this type of software for my own posts and for clients. If the writer had looked at my site, she’d have surmised this.

This is the message she should have sent to me:

Dear Margie,

I realize you’re not a printer, and therefore not in the market for our software. But I’ve looked at your site and see how much writing you do (great work!) for printers and their customers. I’m guessing you know a lot about the type of software we produce.

Are you familiar with our product? It’s a crowded space, I grant you, but our software is particularly valuable to small-to-medium print shops. I believe that if you knew more about it, it’d make for an interesting blog post.

Please have a look at our web site at (inserted URL here), especially the section on Software Solutions, and you’ll find a lot of great information about our products.

Would you be interested in a 10-minute call from me, so I can tell you how this is different from other similar products? Alternatively, I can send you a link to a 3-minute video that gives a great product demo. I’m happy to do whichever is more convenient for you.

Thanks for your time, Margie, and for considering speaking with me. I’ll call in mid-September to follow up.

Sincerely,

Sales Person

In the past I’ve written a lot about the importance of doing your research before ever contacting a prospect. Failure to do so is ridiculous. It could be a wasted effort if sent to someone with no need for your services whatsoever.

BTW, I do prefer a letter or a note card to a call or an email in these B2B prospecting situations. But my expectations are very high for relevancy and content quality.

So what 3 things would have improved this particular letter?

Relevancy
A date
Improved brand ID

Canned sales letters need to be banned – or at least reviewed and tweaked. If it’s worth your time to send a letter through the mail, it’s worth doing it well.

Direct Mail Hits & Misses for Commercial Printers

Too often, commercial printers confuse announcements with marketing. These two things are not synonymous. They have different purposes.

An announcement shares news – an equipment purchase, an award won, maybe a new CEO or a move to a bigger facility. These are typical examples of news you’d cover in a release. They also fit nicely into a newsletter or can be sent in an email that identifies the content as news.

A direct mail piece intended to help market a service or product can’t be just a news item. You can’t simply excerpt bits of a news release, package it as a postcard or brochure, and mail it to prospects with the expectation you’ll get business from it. The copy has to change.

Ideally, an effective direct marketing piece gets inside the head of a potential customer before the copy’s written. Its message addresses one key point from the recipient’s perspective: why should I care?

Numerous times a year I receive colorful postcards from a local trade printer – Braintree Printing in Braintree, MA. Sometimes they send a 5 x 8” postcard. Sometimes, it’s 6 x 9”. Always, the postcard is interesting and fun. And they’re never selling equipment; they’re giving me an answer to a problem or a need I have or may one day have.

My favorite postcard from Braintree Printing

My favorite so far is the card that said, “MARGIE, TRY AND TEAR ME!!” The copy explains that with a certain sheet of paper (Mohawk Synthetic, Premium Polyester), I could get things printed that are totally tear resistant. What did I do immediately? I tried to tear it. I couldn’t.

It’s a great example of a direct mail piece from a printer. I look forward to receiving these postcards.

Another postcard from Braintree Printing was printed on 24 pt board, and that’s what they were trumpeting – or promoting – on this piece, the fact that they can print jobs for me using this paper. It worked well because it put a sample of the sturdy stock in my hands. The copy gave a short list of perfect applications, including signage, packaging, and POP, so that I could relate.

I save all of their postcards so I can follow the marketing trail and learn from them. I also like that these pieces are all personalized and use my first name in the design.

Compare that approach – addressing an issue, desire, or problem your market may have – with a direct mail piece from a printer that features a new press. Using a photo of the press is a mistake if you’re trying to impress a print customer. There’s nothing clever or interesting about it. And listing the features, straight from the manufacturer, doesn’t speak to my needs as a customer.

It is an example of an announcement that thinks it’s a marketing piece. It is not.

Unless the mail piece tells me immediately what the new press can do for my print jobs that I care about, it’s not working.

Bottom line? When creating a direct mail campaign for your print customers, always put yourself in a customer’s shoes and focus on answering this question: Why does this matter to me and how might it help my company?

Don’t confuse an announcement with a marketing campaign.

The first one says, “Look at us!” A good marketing piece says, “Here’s looking at you.”

iStock image

I’m a huge fan of the postcard. It is the direct mail equivalent of a single, perfect dessert cookie – not too dense or overloaded, and not overwhelming like a big slab of cheesecake or a banana split. It’s just the right amount of sweets to digest and appreciate.

But if you abuse your poor postcard by taxing it with too many ingredients, like a biscotti loaded with 6 kinds of nuts and 4 kinds of dried fruit, it will fail miserably. The flavors will fight one another and the poor thing will fall apart under its own weight.

So how do you go about preparing the perfect postcard campaign for your B2B business? I came up with these 10 tips that should help designers and marketers create a balanced and effective postcard campaign.

Go big for maximum impact. Although your postcard can be as small as 3 ½” x 5”, it can also be larger. According to the USPS Business Mail 101 page, the maximum size is 4 1/4” x 6” if you want the postcard to qualify for the First Class Mail postcard rate. It can go even bigger if you want to mail it Standard rate – as large as 6 1/8” x 11 ½”.
Make sure the card stock can make it through the mail. There’s a minimum thickness requirement so that the postcards are automatable. At the small size, it must be 0.007 inches thick. You have a little leeway if you go larger. All of these thicknesses are spelled out on the USPS site. The main concern is choosing paper that’s not too flimsy, causing it to get stuck in the mail processing equipment.
Keep your message short. I’ve received too many postcards that tried too hard. The sender couldn’t make up his mind what he was promoting – or didn’t want to leave off any product or feature. The little card was loaded like a pizza topped with every conceivable meat, veg, and cheese. The result? The main message was lost in the sauce. My eyes didn’t know where to focus. Massive fail!
Be as clever as you dare. A postcard should grab you immediately (since there’s no envelope or other packaging). Spend time coming up with great copy, maybe an intriguing statement or question, or a clever theme you develop over a series of postcards. Make it memorable. Make it smart enough for me to want to share it.
Check with your mailing expert on addressing do’s and don’ts. The post office has strict rules about placement of things like the address block, return address, indicia, and so on. Your designer MUST know these rules. And I learned the hard way to be mindful about placing copy along the bottom edge (lengthwise) of a postcard. We were promoting a conference, and the postcard included a critical “PS” that had a URL for a registration discount. When the postcards were run through the mail equipment, the barcode that was imprinted totally obscured the “PS.” Oops.
Don’t be a numbskull and forget to include your return address. Yes, I’ve seen this. I couldn’t tell where the postcard came from.
Never ever leave off your CTA. What action do you want the recipient to take, after receiving your postcard? Always include a Call to Action, even if it’s to dial a number, send an email, or click on a URL.
Use all 4 colors if it suits you. These days, the price is right for all 4 process colors if you want to use photos. Color grabs our attention. It won’t break the bank (as it did many years ago).
Personalize your postcard. If you personalize your campaign, you increase the response rate. In a report published by PODI (Print on Demand Initiative), variable consistently outperforms static direct mail. Use your data well to target your message – not just by a person’s name, but also by varying the message. There’s a ton of other impressive info about the power of direct mail in this white paper by Marketing Impact.
Add eye magnet words. One of my marketing heroes is Nancy Harhut, the Chief Creative Officer at The Wilde Agency here in greater Boston. She talks about “eye magnet words” that we marketers should pay attention to, for obvious reasons. When we read, we skim and scan, so these words are effective in grabbing our attention. Some examples: a person’s name (see #9), Easy, Free, Introducing, and Secret. (Here are two words that get my immediate attention – Jacob and Anthony. Any guesses why?)

Bottom line? When you’re sending a postcard as opposed to a letter, a flat package or some other parcel, respect its petiteness. You have less real estate on which to display your message. Don’t be tempted to pile on the content and images.

A postcard is a bite-size direct marketing piece with incredible power in its little size. If you do it right, folks will be hungry for another.

A Marriage Made in Heaven: Digital + Direct Mail

Report on a Harry Gold Experience

iStock image

Listen up, all you digital marketers and commercial printers. You need each other.

By combining a digital campaign with a direct mail component, you can give people a memorable, meaningful experience. The result? Business growth, word-of-mouth buzz, great press, increased loyalty, and brand awareness.

Not too shabby.

Recently I attended the annual NEDMA Conference on the campus of Bentley University. The session by Harry Gold, CEO & Managing Partner of Overdrive Interactive, blew me away.

If only more printers had been there. The ones who were there must’ve been as psyched as I was.

Harry’s session was called “Digital & Direct Mail: Turning the Virtual into the Physical with Marketing Automation.” I loved it.

In a nutshell, he shared a few examples of how Overdrive helped companies get peoples’ attention and increase sales by using marketing automation to trigger a direct mail component.

There was that gorgeous Harley Davidson social catalog that his company created from a social crowdsourcing campaign. Owners were invited to send in photos of themselves with their Harleys. Thousands of images were sent in and then used to create the photo mosaic. People could order their copy of the catalog from the website. Just a beautiful printed piece.

Participants could go to the site and zoom into their own photo – which they did by the thousands – and, of course, they shared it. “The share is an important action in social media,” he added. And the repurchase rate over 24 months for the mosaic group vs. others was much higher.

Another case study that illustrated using direct mail effectively was the “Sweet Tweets” campaign for Bazooka brands. This was a social sampling program for Bazooka Candy, which was launching a new product called Sweet Tweets but couldn’t get it on the store shelves.

Overdrive’s campaign to sell the candy (basically a piece of candy attached to a little post-it note), was seriously clever. The target audience was moms, who could write something on the note and add it to their kids’ lunch boxes. (Wish I’d had some when Jacob was little.)

So Overdrive devised a social sampling program (new term for me; love it), where folks asked for it online, and they would then get a sample through the mail. This was a perfect example of blending direct mail fulfillment with a digital experience.

(Anyone else remember sending in Bazooka wrappers back in the ‘60s to get sea monkeys and X-ray glasses?)

A video was created to help sell the Sweet Tweets by showing consumers how to use it.
And there was an online form for people to fill out if they wanted to send someone a Sweet Tweet for free.

The result: an online social sharing campaign used marketing automation to create an offline, delightful experience.

This campaign was multi faceted and involved a Facebook campaign as well a Twitter element. All of the campaign stages are covered in the case study on Overdrive’s site. Again, the share was vital. The campaign basically forced the share; it was step #3 in the FB campaign for Sweet Tweets, having people trade a share for something they’d get in the mail.

One of the coolest things about this campaign? It was done on a shoestring budget.

So marketers should think about direct mail and sampling when appropriate. Find creative ways to get people to ask for your sample or, like Bazooka, get people to send your sample to someone else, in a social environment. This campaign is a great example of using social with direct mail.

If you’re a printer, how could you use this information to help your customers? Why not come up with an idea that would marry a direct mail element with a digital campaign? How could you help customers turn a virtual campaign into a physical reward? How could marketers make digital work better with a physical component?

Harry’s session gave me new insights on marketing automation and how powerful it can be for a brand. Many of today’s innovative marketing companies have automated tools with “sockets that plug into print on demand,” he remarked. And since direct mail still has a higher deliverability rate than email, why not marry the two?

And the digital bride and analog groom lived happily ever after.

P.S. Thanks, Harry! Great stuff.

10 Reasons Why I Love Direct Mail

Call me crazy (you won’t be the first), but I look forward to the mail every day. Last week’s snowstorm here in the Boston area kept the mail carrier from our door – although the UPS guy made it up the front stairs through 10 inches of “why I long to live in Florida.”

I missed the mail.

So I sat down to figure out exactly why I love getting direct mail. Here’s why:

It has the power to delight me. Whether it’s a flyer, catalog, or postcard, I am often impressed by design, printing process, good copy (that I wish I’d written), or some amazing technique that stops me cold. I don’t register “delight” with an email.
I can enjoy it later at my own pace. I put aside some mail, like catalogs from favorite retailers (Anthropologie, Williams Sonoma, J. Crew), to look thorough carefully when I have more time. Usually it’s over lunch. Leisurely perusal – how sweet it is.
Direct mail is portable and easily shared. Flyers about upcoming concerts, plays, movies, or other special events come to mind. I put them in particular spots in my office or home. Maybe they’re pinned to a bulletin board. If family or friends are interested, I can share mail pieces with them. This “in your face” quality makes mail more memorable than email.
Direct mail is unobtrusive. It may (and should) attract my attention, but it sits quietly in a pile until I’m ready to look at it. No audible alerts and no annoying pop-ups on the bottom of my computer screen announcing I’ve got mail.
It’s easier to sort through than email. Maybe it’s just me, but I get hundreds of emails daily, in two different email accounts, and managing them all is stressful and a nuisance. If emails fall “below the fold” on my monitor, I occasionally forget about them and fail to act on them. I get less real mail delivered; it’s a breeze managing it.
It has dimension. Though lots of basic #10 envelopes all look and feel the same, my mail is generally a stack of different shapes, sizes and hefts. Handling mail is physical. It registers an impression no matter who it’s from or what shape it takes. Email is just more of a passive thing. And it’s so easy to scan a subject of an email message and hit delete in a nanosecond.
Direct mail can surprise me. Clever offerings, stunning design, exquisite paper or specialty finishing – all of these can result in my responding to a direct mail piece. “In living color” comes to mind. That’s what good direct mail is. I love it when something smart convinces me to open a piece of mail.
It often inspires me. Is it because I’m in the business? Maybe. But I save a lot of special pieces that are exceptional, in ways both good and bad. For example, I keep samples of mail with QR codes and PURLs, mail printed on unique substrates, mail that screams “great copy!” or “I can’t believe they sent this out with typos.”
There’s comfort in touching it. It seems more “real”….does this make sense? Having a physical interaction with direct mail (or anything), makes it just seem more real to me.
It’s unexpected. What I get delivered in the mail each day is a total surprise to me. Color me juvenile for this, but it’s fun to be surprised.

Direct mail can be produced using lots of dimensions and sizes. Tons of printing techniques. Special inks (like scented). Fabulous and fun folds. Then there’s the paper, which gives you endless options.

There are more ways a business can be creative and outstanding with direct mail than it can in an email.

That’s why I love direct mail.

Call Me Names

I’m a sucker for personalized anything. There’s the coffee mug with a huge M that Jacob gave me for Christmas last year. A personalized jigsaw puzzle of my address in Madison, NJ, where I grew up (Your Hometown Map Puzzle, available through LL Bean, too). And this sweet product tag from a fundraiser I attended recently, which just happened to be calling my name. I couldn’t throw the tag out – but the dog chew toy to which it was attached has already been shredded by Charlie.

The point is simple: I love seeing my name on products. It’s totally magnetic. I just wish more marketers got personalization right on print materials.

Make sure the name is correct, and you’re not using someone’s last name when you should be using their first. “Dana, are you planning for your dream retirement?” is a piece that would get tossed posthaste.

Highly personalized full-color direct mail typically generates a 6.5% response rate (Melissa Data), as compared to non-personalized direct mail, which usually gets a 2% response rate. That’s a radical difference.

Every year, right around my birthday, I get special, personalized print offers from a few retailers with whom I do business – Anthropologie, Coach, Staples, and Ann Taylor come to mind. Email offers arrive around the same time from personal service companies I use, like my hairdresser and massage therapist. These are all very effective. Often, an offer is integrated among several channels, like print + email + telephone.

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The offer has to be compelling enough, that’s a fact. It has to be a great deal for me. Adding my name and even referring to previous purchases makes it all the more relevant. Throw in a clever design with fantastic copy, and I’m hooked. Have the images reflect where I live or shop – or relate them somehow, in some way, to me – and you’ve hit a home run.

Margie Latte

Want my attention? Include the word “Margie” or “Margaret,” for starters. Just make sure the entire message is compelling, relevant, and meaningful to me. If it’s printed or an email, make sure there are no typos or bad grammar.

I even had a personalized latte, once – printed on an inkjet printer.

Do you have any good (or bad examples) of personalized direct mail you’d care to share? I’d love to see them and hear why they worked – or failed.

Category Archives: Direct Mail/Marketing