Direct Mail Marketing: How Variable Digital Printing Separates the Wheat from the Chaff

Here’s a statistic for you. According to the Oberlin College Resource Conservation Team, the average amount of junk mail (read: Direct Mail Marketing Materials) Americans receive in a single day could, if recycled, produce enough energy to heat 250,000 homes. For how long? Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. The point is, when you send out your direct mail marketing materials you’re one of thousands  of advertisers targeting the same (relatively) small group of customers.

The single biggest challenge facing any direct mail marketing campaign is how to get your customers to actually look at what you’re sending them before they throw it away. It’s almost a reflex-if it looks like an advertisement, it goes into the trash. Variable digital printing separates mediocre materials that are a complete waste of your marketing budget from the power players that drive huge amounts of business to your door every single day.

The only way to sell to today’s savvy consumer is to make them believe you’re marketing directly to them-not to them and the thousands of other customers out there that they could be marketing to! Through the careful use of variable digital printing you can customize your marketing materials to incorporate their business, personal and professional interests and any particular areas that may pertain to one client but be completely irrelevant to another.

Today’s customer has no desire to do business with a nameless, faceless corporate entity with no perceived interest in their personal or professional needs. There are enough companies out there that are happy to give them the one-on-one attention they deserve that they don’t need to waste their time with anyone else. You want to be the company they want to do business with, and you can make that happen through the marriage of variable digital printing and your direct mail marketing campaign.

What is Variable Printing?

What’s the hottest word in digital printing today? Variable. As in, variable printing, or variable digital printing. Variable printing has more aliases than most professional gangsters, but it all boils down to the same basic concept: Customized products designed to maximize the appeal of your company.

Defining Variable Printing

“A form of on-demand printing in which elements such as text, graphics and images may be changed from one printed piece to the next without stopping or slowing down the printing process and using information from a database or external file.” (Wikipedia Definition of Variable Data Printing)

What’s in your mail? The credit card offers you get in the mail every day are a great example of variable printing. Why? Because nine times out of ten you’re going to see your name at the top.

Now, when you see a letter pop up in the mail with “Dear Friend” at the top, how long do you wait before you throw it away? One sentence? Two? Or do you shoot on sight? Tune in next time for the why’s and the how’s. For now, let’s just say variable printing acts as a rocket booster for your marketing campaign.

Types of Variable Printing

There are four different types of variable printing orders professional print shops tend to see come across their desks:

1)      Full variable printing, when every part of the page can be customized to your clientele.

2)      Selectable variable printing, where certain parts of the page remain static and unchangeable and others can be adapted to your purposes. You often see this in form letters, allowing certain parts of the form to be filled with information particular to your client.

3)      Personalization, when the product is static (for example, a direct mail marketing postcard) but can be personalized with your customer’s name or the name of your organization.

4)      On-Demand short run printing, when pre-defined prints are created in short runs. Commonly used for presentations, folders, binders, etc. with an organization’s insignia.

Variable printing bridges the gap between you and your customers and eliminates the anonymity and “cookie cutter” personality of most mass marketing materials. What can variable printing do for your business?

Direct Mail Tip #3

3. Encourage a Targeted Response
How do you want these prospects to contact you? Phone? Email? Decide and make that message loud and clear! If you want them to pick up the phone – your phone number should be in at least 2 VERY VISIBLE places. Want them to email? Same deal? Want them to visit your web site? (That can be a slippery slope if you are not using PURL as you are asking for 2 actions – visit web site and then contact us – you may loose some along the way) But always free to promote your site by providing your web address. Those doing research or wanting to learn more about you will appreciate it. Bottom line – contact information should always be clear and easy to read.

Direct Mail Tip #2

Tip #2 Develop a Secondary Offer
Your primary offer will attract prospects that are ready to do business today or in the near future. However, this represents only a small fraction of the potential market. Therefore, you need to make a secondary offer to attract those prospects who are not ready to buy right now but may have a need in three, six or 12 months. This secondary offer can be a free booklet, special report, brochure, fact sheet, free gift or other item the reader can calling or visiting your site or PURL. Going back to our taco example, it could be something like, “Purchase a $25 Taco gift card and get a $5 Taco gift card for yourself!” Stress the primary offer with strong graphics all over your mailing. The secondary offer needs to be visible, but think of it as a “P.S.” in terms of the impact it needs to make visually. For our exterminator your message could be “Call today to request your FREE 3 Simple Steps to a Pest Free Home Guide”

Tips on developing a Direct Mail Campaign

Over the next several days I will give you tips on how to best develop your direct mail pieces. Here is the first one.

enjoy…

Tip #1. Develop A Primary Offer
If you sell something – tacos, make-up or elephant dung – that is pretty simple. Create an offer that would interest clients like, “Free Taco Tuesdays for Kids”. If you are in a service industry – accountant, home design, exterminator – this step may not appear easy, but it is! It is a two-step process. FIRST you have build the value of the service to your audience – then you can offer them things like a free consultation, discounted rate on hourly services, or free evaluation. Here is a good example, “We will inspect your home for pests at no cost and make recommendations on how you can avoid future infestation, while saving you 10% on your first home treatment.”

Effective Direct Mail Campaigns

Many of you may have tried direct mail marketing only to feel like it was a waste of time, energy and money. Why did your campaign not perform? What type of response were you expecting and how did you measure that response. I am sharing this information with you because I want you to succeed – not just with your direct mail campaigns – but in everything you do.

Here is what you should know about direct mail
The average response rate for the 1,122 industry-specific campaigns that the DMA studied was 2.61%. Within sectors, nonprofit fundraisers enjoy the most success with direct response, getting rates of 5.35%. Close behind are retail stores (with 3.36%) and establishments selling services to businesses (3.34%). Manufacturing delivers 3.17%; personal and repair services 3.07%; and travel 2.98%. The two sectors at the bottom of the list — computer/electronic products and packaged goods — still get better than 2% response. Variable Print Campaigns increase the response rate by up to +5%.
(From http://www.directmag.com)

So what does that mean to you?
Have a reasonable expectation. If you send out 1,000 postcards to a qualified mailing list, you should expect about 20 people to respond (don’t confuse respond with purchase). Make it a variable print campaign and that number could up to as high as 75 people.

Here are some tips to have a successful direct mail campaign.

• Use a qualified mailing list. Seems like a no brainer, but often companies miss this step.
• Have a reasonable expectation on the return. Don’t expect a 50% response. It isn’t going to happen.
• Take advantages of new technologies to drive up and track your response rate.
• Variable printing (where you can customize the message on each card to be relevant to the recipient) has great power and will increase your response if done correctly. (Not those stupid postcards you get with a billboard that has your name on it – very, very lame.
• Personalized URL (PURL) allows you to add a URL to your campaign where recipients can log on to get their offer. For example, you can offer a generic 10% discount for your product or service, but then have a second “Visit http://www.personalizedurl.com and get 20% off!” When they arrive, you can give them what you have offered, ask them to take a survey, gather more information from them etc. It is a win-win for everyone.

Make sure you direct mail campaign is strongly branded and consistent with other items you may already have out there. You want your prospects to recognize you and have a sense of familiarity when they receive the item. Working with a graphic designer can be a very critical key to this process. For example, you send out your item, someone goes to your website and they leave because they think they are at the wrong place – there is no visual consistency to tie your messages together.