as found on the Digital Nirvana

By Trish Witkowski on March 16th, 2011

Even though the USPS is struggling, and digital and social media are all the rage, direct mail is seeing renewed interest and technological advancement—for good reason. Printed material in the mailbox, done right, is still the preferred and most effective way to reach a customer. The key to whether or not the opportunity is a wasted one comes down to format and technique. I’ll give you an example:

Recently, I was involved in a collaboration with Sappi Fine Paper. I provided content for their highly acclaimed educational publication series The Standard Volume 4: Scoring & Folding (you can obtain a free copy of the publication by clicking here).

To launch the project, we did a seven-city speaking tour, which included myself and world-famous designer Kit Hinrichs, who was responsible for the design of the piece. Sappi sent out a save the date email blast in each city, which received some response. They followed it up with an exotic “Twist Fold” direct mailpiece in a brightly colored envelope, and the RSVPs skyrocketed the day that piece hit mailboxes. Hundreds showed up at each venue for the events. Print can be powerful.

For this instance, the concept was on target, the design was great, the fold was interesting, and the envelope was attention-grabbing. This was a special piece mailed to a targeted audience and they got the response they were looking for. So, is the moral of the story that you have to spend a lot of money, use a funky fold and an envelope that screams to get good results these days? Of course not. The lesson here is that email alone won’t cut it. Print alone may not cut it, either, but good design and smart decisions along the way can save money, while getting you the response that justifies the expenditure.

Here are a few tips:

• If you want to use an interesting folding style, go for it—but do your research first. Some folds that are generally hand-folded can in many cases be finished by machine if the quantity is high enough. There are specialty binderies that can do this kind of work. On the flip side, if your quantity is low, the expense of hand folding isn’t a very big deal.
• The Sappi piece finished to a square format, which we all know is more expensive from a mailing perspective, but there are many, many interesting folding configurations that can finish to rectangular formats that fit within USPS aspect ratio. Why spend an extra $.20 per piece if you don’t have to? This tip seems like common sense, but I have samples in my folding collection that miss aspect ratio by 1/8 inch. What a careless and costly mistake.
• Make sure your list is clean. It sounds obvious, but if your mailing list isn’t current or targeted, then you’re wasting money. The goal should be to spend an appropriate amount of money on a quality piece that is sent to a clean list of targeted customers.
• For self-mailing pieces, watch fold placement. If the folds are vertical, the lead edge (the edge to the right of the mailing address) must be closed. Other edges must be closed or tabbed. If the fold is on the horizontal, the fold should be below the mailing address. Also, mailing address should always be parallel to the longest dimension. Defy these rules and you can kiss your ROI goodbye to the tune of an additional $.20 per piece non-machinable surcharge.
• Utilize as much automation as possible. Ask your printer how you can maximize the efficiency of your direct mail projects. Many have invested in inline finishing equipment that can score, perf, slit, glue and fold inline. Any time you can automate the process, you can save money. And automation doesn’t necessarily mean limited creativity, either. There are some very sophisticated computerized folding machines that can blow through gate folds, stepped accordions, and lots of other interesting configurations. If you’re printing digitally, various forms of customization can be very effective and efficient with some advanced planning.
• Don’t forget about the envelope. A great printed piece can be overlooked in a boring envelope. Consider full color printing, personalization, custom windows or pulls—do something to get attention and motivate the recipient.
• Spend money to make money. If you’re going to put in the effort and expense to produce and mail a piece, shouldn’t it represent your best efforts? Maybe you saved money with a cheap sheet, a tri-fold format, and a #10 envelope, but if nobody noticed, didn’t you ultimately lose a lot more than you saved?
• Lastly, don’t get caught up in gimmicks. It can be tempting to go in the other direction and pull out all the stops, but there must be balance. A really cool folding style with a confusing message will just end up in somebody’s “cool idea file” or maybe even their “circular file.” A successful direct mailer involves many components and those components must work together to send the right message and provoke a call to action. For best results, resist the urge to get sidetracked solely on “wow-factor” and focus on the objectives and the quality presentation of your content.

By Patrick Henry, at What They Think, on February 11th, 2011

Nobody ever called QR codes pretty to look at. But then, nobody has taken QR codes to heart in quite the same way as Chunghwa Post, the postal system of the Republic of China (Taiwan). For Valentine’s Day, the agency has turned the stark black-and-white of these print-leveraging symbols into a palette of pastels with an underlying message of love—a sentiment that’s welcome in the mailbox on any day of the year.

According to Chunghwa Post, young people in Taiwan now widely celebrate the western tradition of Valentine’s Day on February 14. Hoping to attract the younger generation to stamp collecting as well as to encourage letter-writing, Chunghwa Post has released another set of two Valentine’s Day stamps to coincide with the observance in 2011. (The first in this series of stamp sets was issued on February 6, 2007.)

The design of the stamp features a heart formed by a row of perforations, as well as images of roses, presents, hearts, and the word “LOVE” created from pixels. “Through the interaction between the sender and the receiver,” says the postal service, “these stamps convey love and heighten the romantic atmosphere of Valentine’s Day.”

When scanned by a smartphone with software capable of reading QR codes, the NT$5 stamp reveals the message “Happy Valentine’s Day.” The NT$25 stamp says “I Love You” once decoded. According to this blog, some of the stamps will carry special messages, others will have images, and others can be customized to include short videos to loved ones.

The stamps are designed by Jigsaw Puzzle Design Company and offset printed by China Color Printing Co., Ltd. Lovers (and philatelists) can order them from Chunghwa Posthere.

From the Digital Nirvana this morning:

By Trish Witkowski on February 16th, 2011:

By leveraging current technology, marketers can use print as a way to create a dialogue in B2C communications. Send an email, then a targeted print piece with a PURL, a microsite or QR code to increase points of contact and gather more information about the customer’s interests. In doing this, they’re saying goodbye to the old-school “spray and pray” direct mail methodology and choosing to spend more on the piece to ensure its visibility and return on investment. So what does folding have to do with it? Successful direct mail involves the alignment of several variables, and choice of folding style is one of these variables, however so is color palette, text and imagery, paper choice, layout, format and even schedule. Below is a list of questions addressing machinability for direct mail. I’ll be posting in the future about envelope choice, tips, tricks and techniques to help you get the most out of your DM investment.

Is one fold better than another at getting the most into a standard letter envelope?

Not really. There are always different configurations for folding paper that can get a very large amount of information into a compact size. When designing for folded materials, what is most important is to focus on the organization and reveal of the content so that it does not confuse the recipient, and the placement of critical marketing messages. I always suggest that you mock up your layout and hand it to a few people to make sure the message is properly communicated. If your small test group doesn’t get it, your mailing audience won’t get it, either, and you should rework your layout and test again.

What are the most effective machinable folds for direct mail?

The key to successful machine production for direct mail is closed edges. Perfect example – the accordion fold is notoriously problematic for both self-mailing and for auto-inserting. The trouble is caused by the format—accordions don’t have a closed edge. The open sides make it very difficult, if not impossible, to auto insert, and if it’s self-mailing it’ll need four tabs to seal both sides. Expensive and unattractive. However, if you choose a wrapped accordion (see illustration), you get the accordion experience you’re looking for with its pull-out panels, but you also get a closed edge, which changes the tab requirement and offers a closed edge for inserting. So, sometimes you can get what you want with a little creativity.

How important is machinability for direct mail?

I’ll answer a question with a question: How important is it that you don’t throw money away? I see it all the time—a really great design built in a format that instantly adds a .20 per piece non-machinable surcharge to the mailing budget. Why???? I have samples in my collection that miss USPS aspect ratio by 1/8 inch. It’s silly. What a mindless and costly mistake. In my opinion, there are two things to consider when talking about machine production—machinability of the fold and machinability for mailing. Unless you don’t care at all about the budget, ideally, you should aim for a maximum of one of the two options, but never both. For example, if you’re printing a fairly short run, you may choose a unique folding style that has to be hand folded, but you should try to produce it in a format that is within USPS aspect ratio. Or, similar scenario, design a machinable fold in a square format if you must, however, your most efficient solution will always be machinable fold in a machinable mail format.

Editors Note:  You can find more ideas from Trish at the foldfactory 3-D sample library and watch short videos of hundreds of folding ideas that will be sure to add some variety to the everyday.

I am traveling on business in Ohio, visiting Cyril Scott. So, posting is and will be light – at least until my fingers thaw out again.

Recently, I have posted several articles about the confused marketplace and printers re-inventing themselves to sound “cool” or perhaps confuse buyers as to who they really are.

I saw this breif video this morning posted on what they think, and it about sums it up – from a print buyers perspective. I encourage you to watch it!

Print buyer and marketing exec Brittany Fenning: What “marketing services provider” means

Value added services should be embraced by both printers and clients alike, but printers need to keep in mind what their core competencies are, and how they can truly help a client.

Thought that this article, published by WhatTheyThink.com, tied in nicely with my recent post on 2010 planning, where I wrote:

“Printers will be scrambling to re-invent themselves. Hey – look at us – we do PURL’s, we are a marketing firm! Look over here – we do e-Brochures, we are multi-media experts! Hey – we have mailing in house – we are now data experts! Look – our pre-press department is slow – we can design that for you! This re-invention will create a confused market place. Who are THE experts in any given arena? And, more importantly, how will the client know the answer to that question?”

I agree with Dr. Joe – it is easy for printers to reinvent themselves when the going gets tough – I have seen a lot of that in my local market – some printers even going as far as to change their home page to promote eBrochures instead of promoting the products (printing) that define who they have been for decades. Margie Dana (another link below) hits the nail on the head – we need to be proud of our core competencies and build upon them by hiring professionals – not merely repurposing some existing prepress operators who were not getting the full 40 hours. The company I work for (CGX) has hired those pro’s – we have built upon our position as a leader in print by creating a stand alone technology and solutions group, we have hired top-tier designers to help our clients,  and we have assembled a team of fulfillment experts to round out our offerings.

Enjoy!

Dr. Joe Blog

Marketing Services is the Easy Answer, Just Like Buying New Equipment Always Was

By Dr. Joe Webb
Published: February 17, 2010

Throughout my career, I have always heard that print is a commodity, that there are too many printers, printers always have the same equipment, and that printers don’t know how to market. There are many more, and I’ve dealt with all of them at various times.

This week, I was reminded of the issue because of a blogpost by Margie Dana, which happened to echo my general sentiments about “marketing services” and printers. What she describes, but may not have realized, has an economic underpinning. Businesses are defined, whether they want to be or not, by their major capital investments and their history, all of which combine with other factors to create a culture that is detected by others, even on their first interaction, even if they cannot articulate it. Therefore changing that definition is difficult.

We also know that in surveys that we have done in conjunction with the economic webinars that the business conditions of printers that state that they are marketing services providers are just as bad, and sometimes worse, than printers who do not. I have rarely found that printers who say they are marketing services businesses have any significant or sustainable economic advantage. We don’t know how the early adopters of this monicker initially performed. Nor is there a good set guidelines of what clearly separates a marketing services business with printing equipment from another business with printing equipment alone. A recent post to the WhatTheyThink peer group makes an attempt.

I’ve already explained somewhere in these pages that print is not a commodity (a commodity is a raw material that is combined with other things to create something quite different, which makes print a processor of commodities, but not a commodity itself). The marketplace has been correcting for the number of printers for years, forcing the net exit of more than a thousand a year for a decade and a half. Technology has narrowed the variability of the printing process and its operators, and instead stored essential and repetitive knowledge and craft skills in software. This created a predictable, rising, and reachable level of acceptable mediocrity that nearly all printers could achieve. (Regarding technology and craft, just think that almost every time you click a dropdown in Adobe PhotoShop, it’s probably something that would have taken more than an hour in the 1970s, used lots of film and chemicals, and would have billed out at $35/hour, plus materials).

The old saw about printers being involved in the production of sales and marketing materials for the entire economy, but printers not knowing anything about marketing seemed pretty astute at first hearing. It minimized the core capabilities and innate knowledge that our industry’s entrepreneurs and risk-takers used to profitably survive in the markets at that time. I always found it to be quite the paradox in the 1980s and 1990s when executives of money-losing tech companies would lecture printers about their inability to market. The printers had long track-records of being profitable and supporting generations of family members. The tech companies had trouble surviving from quarter to quarter. The marketing efforts that those printing organizations used at that time were appropriate for their marketplaces at that time. They are not the skills needed this time, because those marketplaces no longer exist in the same way or form.

The reason marketing services is not a panacea has a similar pattern to the way the industry made its equipment investments. For almost all of print’s entire history, there were limited numbers of early adopters of new technologies. In the ’80s and early ’90s, these folks would joke amongst themselves and their risk-averse peers that they were at the “bleeding edge of technology,” a recognition of the marketplace experimentation they were engaged in, and that it often included a period of economic loss until they got it right.

After the adopters were done, other printing organizations would jump on the bandwagon. As some would tell me, “we’ll let them take the arrows and the gunshots, and then we’ll jump in.” There was a mimicry, a keeping up with the Joneses, that was involved in the technology investments that printers would make. This was perfectly sane and rational: prior capital investments would usually have long lives, capital was scarce and had to be used wisely. The market was growing, which meant that there was enough business that could be competed for on a profitable basis unless one made big mistakes, even if that profit was often limited. So if a 28” press was hot, the reason was because it had been proven as safe to buy because the market for its output was proven by other printers the buyer knew. This is how our industry went from letterpress to offset, hot type to phototypesetting, film to direct-to-plate, and many other changes. This has changed, however. Consolidation means that there are fewer independent business owners that can emulate each others capital purchases. Technology changes so rapidly that the marketing life of the equipment is often less than its funtional life.

The problem with marketing services as it is often practiced is that it must co-exist with significant capital investment in print production equipment. Those investments still dominate the culture and operations of that business.

Unlike a bad equipment choice, there is no downside risk to claiming a business is in marketing services and being wrong. No one has to put a load of their own money, or agree to a bank’s conditions, to say they are a marketing services business. That alone would be a barrier of entry to the business, such as preventing a printer from saying they had a heatset press in their plant because they would hire someone to stand next to their AB Dick 360 holding a hair dryer. Capital investment would create discipline to claims, as well as making the differentiation clear to everyone. If I claim to be a medical doctor and start seeing patients, I can be arrested. If I claim to be a marketing services provider, no one will notice.

The real issue is credibility. How does a client know that they are dealing with a marketing services provider, and not “just” a printer? They will know it because the printers experience in marketing services will come from using the tools of marketing services themselves. Consulatitive selling, yet another buzzphrase, is not just telling people what to do and figuring out what freelancers you can assemble and markup their individual billable tasks.

Marketing services is not part of the printing culture, at least yet. So many of our great companies came from entrepreneurs who had print production insights that others of their time did not. Those advantages were right in those times, but now must compete among media alternatives that have advantages unique to themselves.

That competition is not always easily understood unless all of a business’ scarce resources are devoted solely to that cause. For that reason, I have believed that any marketing services business should be a set up as a standalone business, separate from the printing organization, with its own investment, management, and financial measurement. This prevents falling back to the familiar safety of printing capabilities (as in “we need to get some sales activity because we have a lease payment due for the press, so be more aggressive in estimating the next few days”). The shift to marketing services has to be made knowing one can’t fall into a safety net; that’s often more difficult for the owner than it is for everyone else.

Marketing services is a new culture, moving from a billable task or job relationship that is invoiced as completed like print, to a longer-term retainer relationship that is comprised of many services, and billed monthly, quarterly, or annually. It needs to stand alone because the culture and pace of the business is radically different, which means the staffing must reflect that difference, too. But the first hurdle is always to use the tools available in the marketing services business for one’s own business, and use it in a way that proves competence, demonstrates skills of wide range and insight, and makes marketing services more than a new business card.

How valuable is marketing collateral in driving sales?  What types of collateral have the greatest influence on purchasing decisions?  What types of collateral are most widely used by prospective buyers?  These were some of the questions that Eccolo Media sought to answer in a recent study of collateral usage by US technology buyers.