Tag Archive for: direct mail marketing

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Winter is coming: Get a jump on your holiday direct marketing tactics

When it comes to holiday marketing, it’s time to start planning for it. The Holiday season – starting with Black Friday and continuing through New Years – is prime retail season for everyone, and you should focus your budget on proven direct marketing tactics.

Direct marketing via postal mail can still have a vital role to play, especially for smaller shops looking to compete with the “big box” stores in town. Creative, interesting, and engaging holiday marketing materials will help ensure people remember you, no matter what Macy’s has on special.

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targeted direct mail campaign

Personalize Your Direct Mail Campaign Without Crossing the Line

One of the most contentious issues in marketing today is the issue of privacy, especially in regards to data-gathering.  A recent Pew Poll showed significant across-the-board concerns about the amount of private information that’s getting into the hands of business, and this is undoubtedly affecting customers’ attitudes towards companies and targeted direct mail campaigns.
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Building the Best Direct Mail Campaigns

With a well-rounded understanding of the difference between branding and marketing, irresistible offers, and tracking methods, any business can craft the best direct mail campaigns. Below is a sample marketing campaign to show the benefits and ease of creation for even small business owners.

Branding or Marketing the Best Direct Mail Campaigns

 

Quality-Auto Used Cars is gearing up for an end of summer marketing campaign. They are purchasing many used vehicles and know they need to sell 200 vehicles during their upcoming weekend event. Jeff, the marketing specialist for the dealership, determines they need a direct mail marketing campaign due to their expectations of trackable results, not simply brand recognition for the dealership. With the understanding that getting people onto the car lot will require incentives, the dealership staff begins to brainstorm ideas.

Crafting an Irresistible Offer

 

The best direct mail campaigns will have a strong core offering that attracts the ideal customer. The dealership staff discuss core offerings for some time and ultimately decide every attendee will receive a hot dog and soda during the “End of Summer Blowout BBQ”. All test drivers who purchase a vehicle will receive a $100 gas card, and 3 lucky winners will receive a BBQ smoker.

Implementing a Tracking Method

 

Quality-Auto Used Cars decides they will design the campaign postcard as cut-out tickets which can be used as food vouchers and raffle prize entry tickets. This allows the dealership to track the turnout based on the response to the direct mail marketing postcards. The dealership will ask customers where they heard of the event during the sale process to ensure all vehicle sales resulting from the direct mail campaign are given due credit.

Contacting a Direct Mail Marketing Company

 

Jeff, the dealership’s marketing specialist contacts Tony from One Stop Mail to get help with the direct mail marketing campaign. Tony suggests using One Stop Mail’s graphic design services to create a captivating illustration for the direct mail postcards. Once Jeff approves the final design, One Stop Mail uses Every Door Direct Mail, a USPS service, to deliver the postcard to all homes within a 5-mile radius of the dealership. One Stop Mail handles the difficult work and ensures the postcards are printed, sorted, and delivered at the local post office to be mailed by USPS.

Analyzing the Campaign

 

Now that the team at Quality-Auto Used cars completes their weekend long sale event, they can analyze the campaign see the benefit of direct mail marketing. Iterations are important in all forms of marketing. As a result, the dealership staff determines if they want to run a second mail marketing campaign using variable data printing, to ensure all prospects who did not purchase a car will receive a voucher for a free oil change and tire rotation with purchase of a vehicle.

This re-marketing allows the dealership to capture a greater percentage of consumers who showed an initial interest in a vehicle and attended the sale event, With variable data printing, the dealership was able to customize each letter sent, using the name of each person who test-drove a vehicle to add a personalized touch and increase the response rate.

As you are planning one of the best direct mail marketing campaigns for your business, contact One Stop Mail for a quote or simply call 602.233.3003 to learn more about how we can help you achieve your marketing goals.

 

Stand_Out_In_The_Mailbox with direct mail tips

Stand Out in the Mailbox with These Direct Mail Tips

Direct mail is still one of the most popular, affordable, and effective forms of marketing available… but you need to catch people’s attention quickly.  Forty four percent is never opened, and most of that boils down to a failure of presentation and not using well-known direct mail tips.

When consumers are time-pressed, your direct mail needs to immediately grab their attention and become the first thing they open.

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Direct Mail Specialty Envelopes Number 10 One Stop Mail

Specialty Envelopes: Beyond Your Average #10

If you have ever had to send correspondence to someone or mail billing, then you are familiar with the #10 size envelope. To many, when someone says envelope, that is the first image that comes to mind. However, envelopes come in many different shapes and sizes. Each one has a specific purpose, allowing its shape and size to suggest its purpose. In this article, we will cover different envelope styles and how they can be put to use.

Outside of the #10 Envelope

So we already know everything about #10 envelopes, which is the most commonly used size of commercial envelopes. Businesses typically use these envelopes, and they range in size from #5, smallest, to #14, the largest. They are open-sided, and may or may not contain a window on the front.

Direct Mail Speciality Envelopes You Should Know

There are 5 envelope options that can make you stand out. They are:

  1. “A” Style Envelope
  2. Catalog Envelope
  3. Booklet Style Envelope
  4. Remittance Envelope
  5. Donation Envelope

Here is what makes these specialty envelopes…well…special!

A Style: Have you heard of A-Style?  There is an easy way to remember it. The “A” stands for “announcement.” They can come in two forms: either with a deep pointed flap or a shorter flat flap. They are usually used for special announcements, whether that be business related or more personal. They can also be used for photographs, small booklets, and greeting cards.

Catalog: Another familiar envelope style is the catalog. It is the standard mailing envelope for important documents such as reports, folders, and contracts. If you are like me, when I hear Manila envelope, these are the kind of envelopes I think of. They are typically open on the short side of the envelope and may have a flexible piece of metal to hold the flap in place or a mount to tie it shut.

Booklet: Similar to catalog but different in its own respects, the booklet style. These kinds of envelopes are typically used for magazines, catalogs, booklets, media kits, and other multi-page documents. They are open ended on the long side of the envelope and have some sort of sealant to close the flap.  

Remittance and Donation: The final two envelope styles we will cover are remittance and donation. Remittance envelopes have large flats and are used to hold private information like credit card numbers or other private documents. Donation envelopes also referred to as offering, pew, or tithe envelopes, are a cheap way to collect donations. These are most prominently used by religious organizations and nonprofits and cannot be mailed.   

Direct Mail and Other Use Cases  

Marketers should carefully consider the envelope that will contain their marketing materials. After pouring over every detail of that document, you should not put it in something that is not equal in quality. As you can see, there are a lot of different options. Whether you want to attract attention by using a different style than the standard commercial envelope, or you want to spruce up a commercial envelope to stand out, One Stop Mail can put to use its own in-house envelope printer to fit your marketing needs.

The use of specialty envelopes doesn’t stop there.

Perhaps you are in real estate and need to send an important property notice that is time-sensitive?

Or perhaps you own an auto care shop and want to make car drop offs more convenient for your customers.

Envelopes have many other use cases outside of mail. With the ability to fully customize them to your needs, consider them as a solution to improve customer service, or increase the efficiency of how you handle day-to-day business.

Remember, we’re here to help you – check out what else we can do to help or give us a call 602-233-3003!

 

EDDM Mailers deliver to Every Mailbox on Carrier Route

Leverage the Advantages of Direct Mail when Marketing Locally

You may think the advantages of direct mail might seem like last century’s marketing, but it’s not!

Despite all the advances in digital advertising in the previous decades, good old direct mail is still one of the single most effective and cost-effective marketing options available for local outreach.  Physical mail never went away, and it’s still one of the most-used communications methods in the country.

If you haven’t thought about direct mail lately, here are a few things you might want to know about just how effective it still  is!

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OSM Blog Direct Mail for Brand Recognition 1

Successful Direct Mail Campaigns Create Brand Recognition

One common mistake we see when an organization embraces direct mail is creating only one piece of mail for a given campaign. Sure, a little mail marketing is better than none, but it’s not the most effective method to develop successful direct mail campaigns.

Mailbox marketing can be a rewarding way of building brand awareness and engaging your leads via multiple types of messaging. Since virtually everyone checks their mailbox once a day, it gives you ample opportunity to put your brand in front of people… and in a format that’s separate from the distractions of nonstop electronic advertisements.

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OSM Top 7 Direct Mail Statistics

Top 7 Direct Mail Statistics You Can Use

With the business world about to enter into the last quarter of the year, it is a good time to take stock of direct mail’s effectiveness in 2017 so far. Although the volume of direct mail went down last year, direct mail garnered a larger percentage of all mail. With technology and other tools to improve the timing of direct mail, this year’s statistics have shown that direct mail is not only still relevant in the marketing world, but that it is, in fact, one of the most successful channels available to marketers. Here are the top direct mail statistics you can use for this year.

#1 Direct Mail Statistics You Can Use – Household Response Rates Are at 5.1%

Yes, that decimal is in the right spot. According to compu-mail, direct mail has earned the highest response rate, with email and paid search at .6%, social media at .4%, and online display at .2%. Part of the reason why response rates are so high with direct mail is an increase in tools and information through technology that has enabled well-timed and personalized direct mail marketing campaigns.

OSM Mailboxes mathyas kurmann fb7yNPbT0l8 unsplash direct mail statistics you can use77% of People Sort Through Their Mail

Many marketers are finding it difficult to get prospects to open emails. I personally usually delete without even looking any extraneous emails and promotions. It has just become routine, which is unfortunate for marketers, for I can only imagine how many other people are like me. Average open rates are typically below 20% in comparison to mail. I for one always sort through my mail, and when I see something that stands out, I usually take a few seconds to see what it is, which bodes well for direct mail.

Every $167 Spent On Direct Mail Resulted in $2,095 Of Sold Goods

I believe that ROI speaks for itself, but one must ask what industries reaped the most benefit from direct mail. The largest users of direct mail include companies that offer financial services and also consumer packaged goods. With print still playing such a large role in marketing, coupled with cost-effective green methods of print, one can only imagine that direct mail will still be a major component of marketing campaigns going forward.

98% of Consumers Bring Their Mail In The Day It’s Delivered

Many are concerned that after putting all of the effort to create a personalized direct mail piece that it will just end up in the trash with the rest of the junk mail. If it does, it is probably not due to a diminishing trend in the public’s responsiveness to direct mail, but rather the direct mail piece itself missing the mark. As the direct mail statistics you can use from the U.S. Postal Service exemplifies, whatever you send out will get eyes on it. Whatever happens after will, for the most part, be within your power to control.

Customer Response Rates Increased Year-Over-Year by 48%

Companies who have never thought of using direct mail would be smart to start considering using it as one of their marketing channels. Not only did customer response rates increased, but prospective response rates more than doubled with a reported 190% increase. As noted by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), this is in part due to the “pairing of mailings with digital intelligence. “

Adding A Person’s Name and Color Can Boost Response Rates By 135%

We have discussed the importance of personalization time and time again, and if for some reason you didn’t believe it before, then perhaps this statistic can lend some credence to this idea. Personalization, particularly with the introduction of variable data printing, is now within reach of most budgets. And in turn, can improve your ROI, and make the money you spend go a greater distance.

Print Is 43% Less Annoying than the Internet

Bottom line, we all hate spam. I for one get irritated when advertising videos start on websites yet it is nearly impossible for me to find it to shut it off. Many of us have become blind and aggressively against online advertising in many ways. That is why direct mail is refreshing to most since it is usually personalized, relevant, and recognized as something that took a lot of effort on the part of the company sending it. This makes the consumer feel important and valued, which at the end of the day, is just good marketing.

When it comes time to rely on direct mail experts, don’t leave it to chance. Go with an organization with vast experience and diverse mail services so you can be sure that your goals are taken seriously. One Stop Mail’s mail and list services will target the audience that will respond to your specific offer. Learn more by calling 602.932.7984 or send a request and we’ll be ready to help.

Variable Data Printing

5 Reasons You Should Use Variable Data Printing Services

If you are familiar with the ins and outs of direct mail, then you have probably heard of variable data printing services. Variable data printing is on-demand printing in which components of the printed copy, such as text, images, and other elements, are changed from piece to piece without slowing down the process. This enables marketing teams to create highly personalized direct mail pieces, which can be a game-changer for your business. Here are five reasons why you should consider using variable data printing services for your next big marketing push.

More Bang for Your Buck

First and foremost, the greatest benefit you can reap from using variable data printing is getting a better return on investment (ROI). With greater personalization, response rates should be higher, putting your money to better use in comparison to other marketing approaches.

And if you are thinking that the internet is where all the action is at, think again. Interestingly, 66% of Millennials are more likely to use a voucher if they have a physical copy, with 36% of people under the age of 30 saying they look forward to checking the mail every day. Direct mail is still a big player in the marketing world. Coupled with the personalization offered with variable data printing services, it is an invaluable tool to have in your pocket.

Integration with Online Marketing Campaigns

Most marketing strategies conducted by businesses utilize multiple channels to improve their effectiveness so that they do not put all of their eggs in one basket. You can take personalization to the next level with custom QR codes and personalized URLs. Integrating variable data printing with an internet campaign is an effective way to get more engagement and response with your marketing campaigns.

Personalization Does Not Mean Slow Turnaround

When many of us think of personalization, we worry about how much time will have to be put into building the campaign for each individual we are targeting. But as we have mentioned before, variable data printing offers the ability to personalize without slowing down the process. Time is money, but variable data printing will provide a quicker turnaround than you might expect.  

Segmentation on A Larger Scale

Variable data printing yields you the opportunity to take your data segmentation and apply it directly to various marketing pieces. You can target an individual based on their purchase history, their interests, age, and many other indicators that detail what kind of things a person will be interested in. Increasing your marketing campaign’s relevance to a particular individual will resonate more than with something that is more generic or not as personalized.  

Tracking is Easier With Variable Data Printing Services

Tracking the response rates and other data metrics is much easier with variable data printing. Marketers have to constantly interpret data to formulate conclusions about customers to improve and curtail campaigns. By making it more personalized with QR codes and personalized URLs, you can track the response rates of your target audience much more clearly than with other strategies.

Long-Term Benefits

With variable data printing services, you can nurture current and new relationships with customers by acknowledging their uniqueness rather than grouping them into a more generic group. This will not only make them feel valued, but also set them up to have greater brand loyalty. Find out how you can foster long-lasting customer relationships through variable data printing with One Stop Mail.

 

Direct Mail Campaign Examples

Proven Direct Mail Campaign Examples – Define The Best Target Market

Have you identified a potentially lucrative part of the market you want to target? Or, do you simply want to grow your customer base? Doing the groundwork is the best direct mail campaign examples that can be the difference between a positive and a negative return on investment (ROI). The first thing you should do is start with what you know.

Analyzing Your Current Customers

Even if you are targeting a new target market, you should not disregard what you know about your current customers. These people have already purchased your product. To get more customers, you should compile details regarding past customers such as what area many of them are living in. If you can identify some key ZIP codes that stand apart, you can look up information through the Census Bureau to get other pieces of data such as average household income and age.  

Purchasing A Targeted List

To supplement any in-house research you do, take it a step further to follow successful direct mail campaign examples and acquire a list compiled by a third-party company. These lists can usually be broken down by certain demographics so you only get the most relevant people to target. These lists can be targeted down to fathers with children under the age of 5 with a bachelor’s degree. You can get even deeper, such as if they own a home, and have a credit card. 

If you need support choosing or purchasing a direct mail list or have questions, check out our Mailing Lists & Data Services page.

Crafting Copy and Design That Is Successful

At first, you will probably be doing some guessing in regards to any new target markets. However, you can educate your guess with what you know about your current customers, and infer what will be attractive to this new market. Once you have a clear picture of this target market, you can do a smaller campaign to test the waters at a reasonable price. As you collect this new data, you can start to change the campaign so that you can improve your ROI.

More Proven Direct Mail Campaign Examples – Seek Out Experts

Not only do you need to be targeting the right people, but you need to take some time to determine what kind of copy and design will be the most successful. You want to not only make it eye-catching so it stands out, but also have a concise message with a clear call-to-action. You will at most have 3 to 5 seconds to get your message across.

So whatever you decide to go with, you need to make it count. To get an idea of what you can do with your budget, contact One Stop Mail to get a quote for your specific project.