We kept saying “we HAVE to make another video”. Well, we finally sprung into action and hope to keep the momentum going.

Today’s video is about promotional items and direct mail. Using them IN direct mail and using them AS direct mail with examples for both. We also covered this topic in this blog post.
 

In the video we mention brainstorming with us about promotional items and direct mail…or getting a catalog. If you’re interested, please contact us.

Despite the reliability of direct mail, you may be looking for some specific examples of how you can enhance your direct mail by combining it with other marketing strategies and techniques. Read on to learn how you can boost the effectiveness of your direct mail.

 
Direct Mail with PURLs

A PURL, or personalized URL, is a unique web site address that allows a user to access personalized content by entering the URL into their web browser. PURLs are a natural match for direct mail because it’s so easy to include a PURL in the print process whether the mailing is being done digital or traditional. Each of your recipients receives a unique URL specific to them. The URL usually contains their name in order to make it more memorable. Since your recipients will have to type the link into their web browser, you’ll want to keep the PURL as short and as simple as possible.

A PURL should lead to a landing page with a specific offer and personalized information. According to Tom Searcy of CBS News, “In most cases, a campaign with only a home page link generates higher website ‘hits’, but that traffic can get lost after the home page. When using links, it is better to have a landing page tailored specifically for the offer in the message. Still, even a landing page cannot overcome an uncompelling offer.”[2]

So what can a PURL lead to? You essentially have two options: a PURL redirect or a direct PURL. A PURL redirect takes the PURL as its input and redirects the person to a static landing page that you specify. While the PURL itself may be unique to each user, the landing page is not. The advantage of this over a normal URL is the PURL allows you to track who is visiting your site not just how many are visiting. On the other hand, a direct PURL links to a specific, personalized page for each individual, and each page will be different for each user. This landing page is custom created specifically for the PURL campaign and you usually swap out images and copy, and include a pre-populated response form.

 
Direct Mail with Email

Some people have played down the importance of direct mail in today’s email age, but studies have shown that it still has a critical role in marketing strategies, and is preferred and trusted by many demographics over email.[3] We think direct mail and email should be utilized together.

According to Tony Pires of Lime Marketing, “Consumers still like to receive mail. It’s tangible and real and we can leave it on our desk or counter and look at it later. We can’t just hit the delete button and make it go away. Now imagine taking that same message and a short time later sending out an e-mail blast that promotes the same information. That integrated approach and consistent message using two different mediums to touch your client or prospect can have a dramatic affect on the success of the campaign.”[4]

Email is a natural follow up to direct mail. For example, if a direct mail piece is delivered to your prospects early in the week, you can follow up later in the week with an email reminding them of your offers. The email can reference the message you provided in the direct mail piece, provide additional follow-up information, and include either a link to a landing page, or a PURL for a personalized experience as described previously.

This also works in reverse. You can send out an email to your list, and then take a look at who responds. For prospects who don’t respond to the email, you can follow up by sending only those prospects a direct mail piece. This approach will also save you printing and postage costs because you aren’t sending to those who are more likely to respond to an email. An email can also be used as a “preview” to let prospects know to expect an offer in the mail in the near future.

 
Direct Mail with Promotional Items

Promotional items have been traditionally associated with in-person communications, where you hand out items to a potential customer, whether in your office, at a trade show, or at a chance meeting. However, you can also distribute promotional items through direct mail. While the standard direct mail piece consists of a letter in an envelope, a postcard, or a catalog, direct mail can be easily enhanced by combining the basic message with a promotional item.

There are many promotional items that can be easily included in a standard mailing, while others require more creative designs. Small flat items, such as a decal, smartphone screen cleaner, imprinted rulers or bookmarks, can be included in most envelopes or other traditional mailing forms with little to no modification to the design. Magnets are another type of promotional item that can be easily added to most direct mail pieces and provides a bit of real estate for your brand to get some face time.

However, more complex promotional items can also be integrated into direct mail pieces in more creative ways. For example, we recently created a mailing for a healthcare client involving an imprinted flower pot-shaped pen holder with an imprinted pen (watch this video to see a sample). The items were enclosed in a small box along with a brief letter. Obviously, a mailer of this type is going to have a higher cost per piece than a standard envelope, but it’s far more likely to be opened, and of course, that’s the first goal in direct mail. Once the piece is open, the promotional items will do their job by providing brand recognition to your potential customers.

As you can see, direct mail can be enhanced by combining it with other marketing strategies and media, resulting in enhanced visibility for your brand.

How are you enhancing your direct mail?

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[1] http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31852

[2] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505183_162-57415782-10391735/10-ways-to-stop-prospects-from-trashing-your-email/

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ernan-roman/have-you-forgotten-about-_b_1465914.html

[4] http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120420/NEBULLETIN/205010321/-1/rss57

It’s a smartphone screen cleaner. The cleaning pad sticks to the back of your phone and you just peel it off to clean your screen and then it re-sticks back to your phone.

As you can see, you can personalize this screen cleaner with full-color artwork. For pricing or more information, please contact us. Thanks!

In case you’re new here, our mini marketing interviews feature various Marketers with different areas of expertise. So even if today’s interview isn’t relevant to you, the next one might be.

 
1. Can you give me a very brief bio about yourself and your company?

Elsevier was established over 125 years ago as a leading publisher of science & health information. Elsevier serves more than 30 million scientists, student and health & information professionals worldwide. We publish around 2,000 journals and close to 20,000 books and major reference works. We provide our products and services in two divisions, Science & Technology and Health Sciences. I have worked for magazine publishers for over 20 years in the high tech field and now STM.

 
2. What is your marketing expertise?

My expertise is in Marketing and Circulation Management specifically with acquisition and retention of subscriptions.

 
3. Regarding your expertise, if you had to choose one tip to share, what would it be?

No two industries are the same. What works well for one may not be the answer for the other. You need to continuously test all facets of direct marketing to understand your customer. The commonality of all industries is knowing your customer and marketing to them in the way they want to be reached.

 
4. What do you think the future of direct marketing is?

For a long time people have said direct mail is dead, email marketing is the future. I don’t think direct mail will ever go away. It will continue to be a viable part of an overall marketing mix. It’s the best way to drive people to your website. In the STM market, all the research shows that most doctors have SmartPhones or iPads, however our best responses continue to come through direct mail.

 
5. If you use direct mail, what is working for you right now?

What works for us is a #10 package. We vary what goes inside the envelope. By taking advantage of PURLs, QR codes and variable printing we continue to see solid responses relative to our market.

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If you want to be considered for our interview series, please send your answers to the same questions above to Ryan Cote. Thank you!

• Qualifying mailings are Presorted and automation mailings of First-Class Mail cards, letters, and flats and Standard Mail (including Nonprofit Standard Mail) letters and flats with a mobile barcode inside or on the mailpiece.
• The mobile barcode must lead the recipient of the mailpiece either to a webpage that allows the recipient to purchase a product or service on a mobile device, or to a personalized URL, which leads to a web page that is unique to an individual recipient.
• Qualifying mailings may receive an upfront price reduction of 2 percent of the eligible postage.
• Participation requires electronic documentation.
• Commingled, combined and co-mail mailings are allowed, but a separate postage statement is required for pieces with mobile barcodes.

Note: we can help you with QR codes including ones that are integrated with personalized URLs. If you want pricing or more info, please email Ryan Cote at ryan@ballantine.com.

Offset printing and other traditional print processes still play a huge role in the direct marketing world. That being said, digital printing is being utilized more and more by many companies because of the benefit and flexibility that digital printing offers such as true personalization.

 
What is Digital Printing?

So what is digital printing, anyway? It’s the automation and customization of the printing process through computer control. “Digital printing translates a digital file that describes a page directly to the printing equipment. The page is recreated each time, which is why variable data handling is so easy.”(1) Laser and ink jet printers take an input from a computer control system and print media on demand. However, this definition, while accurate, does little to really show what digital printing can do, particularly for direct marketing.

For the direct marketing professional, digital printing allows you to combine static and dynamic elements in your marketing media into a single print process. For example, a traditional postcard may have been printed in a static process, meaning every single piece in the print run is identical. Customized information, such as an address block, is added later through a second print run, usually on a lower quality print process.

On the other hand, digital printing allows all of these elements to be printed in one print run. After one pass through the system, each mail piece will have all of its elements in place and will be ready to mail.

 
Benefits of Digital Printing

While digital print processes can have a higher per-piece cost, these costs are continuing to fall as technology improves, and the labor and materials associated with traditional printing are nearly non-existent for digital printing. “This means that the time, materials, and expense that the other print methods require for setup and proofing are much lower – in fact, they can be close to zero – for digital presses.”(2)

This means that with digital printing, you can print what you want, whenever you want, at nearly the drop of a hat. What comes out of the printer on the first piece will be the same as what you see on the screen. You can print 3 copies or 300,000 copies, although you’ll need to have hardware that matches your printing requirements.

 
How Digital Printing Benefits Marketing Campaigns

So, digital printing does sound pretty wonderful, but what’s the real benefit? The answer is personalization. While it’s nice to be able to automatically print address and postal barcodes right onto your mail pieces during one single print process, customization is the real star right now. “Over the past several years, marketers have seen that highly targeted, relevant mailings can be significantly more effective than a non-targeted “shotgun” approach.”(3)

You can create individualized content within each mail piece based on your prospect’s demographics and purchasing history. Digital print processes allow you to pull specific database information into the printing application so that every single one of your recipients gets an offer that is relevant to them.

Here are a few examples:

• If you’re printing a coupon onto a direct mail postcard, you can tailor the item that the coupon refers to based on the buying history of each customer.
• You can easily segment your database so that a specific message is sent to people who have never purchased from you, people who have purchased from you recently, or people who purchased from you a long time ago, but not recently.
• You can produce marketing collateral on demand that is specific to each person’s interests. This strategy is perfect for travel & hospitality companies, colleges & universities, real estate builders and more.

Digital printing puts so much power into the potential of direct marketing. Direct mail is still an extremely effective way to reach potential customers, and digital printing gives direct mail a turbo boost in terms of customization and printing on demand.

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1. Whitebread, David, The Design Manual, Revised and Expanded Edition, University of New South Wales Press, Ltd, 2009
2. Kasdorf, W.E., ed., The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing, Columbia University Press, 2003.
3. http://www.xerox.com/digital-printing/direct-mail-marketing/enus.html

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A growing part of Ballantine’s business is helping clients with promotional items and giveaways. Sometimes they go hand in hand with direct mail as we’ll feature on our blog soon. And sometimes we do solo projects like tablecloths, bags, pens, etc.

We thought it would be interesting and helpful if we use our blog to promote some of the more unique ideas as we come across them. And so it begins…idea #1 is below.

It’s a really neat smartphone stand. And as you can see, you have the ability to personalize them in the circular area. If you want pricing, please contact us. Thanks!

 
Introduction

Guilford Press designates a handful of their book titles as Free for Adoption Consideration. This means that professors can get the book for free to examine it before agreeing to adopt it for use in their course.

 
Versions

This mailing consisted of 71,000 6×9 postcards, but this total quantity was spread out over 12 different course books being promoted. To help cut costs dramatically, we produced this job as one run of 71,000 postcards with 12 different versions. Always gang-run if possible.

 
Results

Guilford Press has been using this strategy for awhile because it works for them. That being said, tracking ROI accurately is difficult because they are giving out free copies that can’t be tied to a promo code. Instead, they look back 18 months later and measure:

• How are course adoptions doing for these specific titles?
• Did they get a spike in free copy requests after the postcard mailed?

 
Samples

If you would like a printed sample of this postcard, or have a project you want us to quote, please contact us.

The white paper covers trends in direct mail, email marketing, integrating traditional marketing processes with technology and social media, and more.

The trend predictions are based on the input from industry experts and Ballantine’s over 45 years of experience in direct marketing.

Click Here to Download

Experimenting with Enhanced and Unique Formats

Many companies have been thinking “out of the envelope” when it comes to direct marketing. According to Direct Marketing IQ, they’ve seen an increase in the use of larger formats, even as marketing budgets have shrunk. “The percentage of mail that was larger sized (bigger than 6″ x 9″s) actually went up by 9 percent!! Now larger formats are being used a full quarter of all mail — 25.5 percent to be exact. How long this trend can hold remains to be seen.” A mailer size that is out of the ordinary such as an oversized postcard or a slim-jim magalog will be more likely to catch the eye of your prospect.

Taking Advantage of Intelligent Mail Barcodes

The Intelligent Mail Barcode, or IMB, is an upgrade of the coding processes used by the United States Postal Service (USPS) to sort and track pieces of mail that travel through the postal delivery system. The IMB includes the data types from the POSTNET and PLANET Code barcodes, plus additional information. While the IMB can help your direct mail reach your customers, it provides so many other benefits, including greater accuracy with all data in one barcode, greater accountability and tracking from USPS, and improved error correction.

Personalization

Tailoring marketing messages, whether through direct mail or email, was a huge trend in 2011 that caught the eye of many customers. Digital print processes have allowed companies to create personalized content right off the press in a single print run, including content that was relevant to each individual customer. Personalized URLs, or PURLs, helped link print media or email to personalized landing pages with unique content. PURLs are easy to remember and usually include the customer’s name, so that it not only catches the prospect’s eye, but makes them more likely to go online and visit the URL. A personalized landing page will contain information that is specifically relevant to that customer. The content can be dynamically generated based on preferences and prior purchases, resulting in truly relevant content.

The Continuing Dominance of Email

While some pundits may have predicted the slow death of email marketing, 2011 showed that email is not dead, and very much an important part of the majority of marketing campaigns out there. However, bulk email blasts are an endangered species. Marketing Sherpa notes that triggered emails were a big success in 2011, and resulted in significantly higher engagement than standard promotional email messages. “A case study shows how Microsoft implemented a multi-stage, months-long triggered email series to improve engagement and educate new B2B Office 2010 customers. They increased open rates by 800% and clickthrough by 2,100%.”

Video Reaps Results

A case study on Marketing Sherpa showed how enterprise software developer repurposed existing content to reengage with neglected prospects. The content was used to create, videos, white papers, links to third-party content, data sheets, and a combination of PDFs and links. “The big result of the campaign? The email sends with video accounted for 54% of the total clicks. The videos included calls-to-action to download educational papers and analyst reports.” Videos can be used in so many ways to support a marketing campaign, including basic educational videos describing a product or service and testimonials of customers who have already purchased a product or service. Videos can be used to answer customer questions, highlight a new product, and introduce company experts.

Integration of Multiple Marketing Media

Integrated marketing was predicted to be a big trend in 2011 and it certainly followed through on its expectations. It is almost mandatory to have a consistent and integrated message across several types of media, from direct mail to email, from websites to radio and TV advertising. Integration isn’t just repeating the same message on every type of media; it’s creating complementary messages that build upon each other to drive home your message to your prospect. For example, you can set up a campaign that begins with an email message prompting the customer to visit a specific website, where additional information is located. The email message can be followed up with a print postcard with a PURL to encourage prospects who have not yet visited the website to check it out. All of these media can also be integrated with social media efforts on Facebook and Twitter, along with supporting videos hosted on YouTube.

QR Codes

Quick response, or “QR” codes, represent another trend that saw success in 2011. QR codes are two dimensional bar codes that allow prospects with mobile phones to easily access product or service information. QR codes can be placed on postcard mailers, print advertising, or even billboards and posters. The code can link to anything online, from a specialized landing page to an explanatory video. While companies such as Microsoft have created their own 2D code styles, they can only be read by specific Microsoft programs, whereas standard QR codes can be read by many different programs. Another benefit to QR codes is that you can re-use the code to update to new and improved content whenever you want without having to update the code itself.

While trends do come and go in direct marketing, these specific trends have shown success and staying power in 2011. If there are some tactics in this list that you haven’t tried, make a resolution to add them to your campaigns in 2012 and tap into some of that success. As always, if you need additional information about any of these strategies, or want to speak to us about your direct marketing, give us a call.

Happy New Year from the Ballantine Corporation!

Image – © fotogestoeber – Fotolia.com