When the economy is bad and budgets are stretched to the breaking point, it’s easy to be short sided about your marketing costs. We have all heard that old cliché, “penny wise, pound foolish”. That saying was written over four hundred years ago by an English author, Edward Topsell, and its sentiment still rings true today. Even with some signs that an economic recovery is underway and ad spending is finally recovering, marketers are still cautious with their budgets. Direct marketing efforts simply must prove their ROI. Not to say that marketers were throwing money out the window a few years ago, but there certainly has been a shift in the way an ad program is evaluated and what results are expected.

Many moons ago I was working on a direct mail program for an international auction company. We had put together a nice package consisting of an oversized envelope, a glossy color catalog, a letter and a buckslip. When the cost estimate came in from the lettershop, management was not happy. It was going to cost roughly twice what they had projected for this campaign. However, based on what our competition was sending out, we knew the package would stand out and certainly drive better results.

Structural Graphics’ core business is our high-impact dimensional print solutions. If you’re reading this you probably are somewhat familiar with our work, and you also may know that we offer a different kind of direct marketing product. We don’t sell postcards for fifteen cents each and we certainly don’t do many standard white envelopes. We don’t offer the least expensive direct marketing products because we are more focused on our client’s ROI. To achieve a greater ROI you need to do something different and that just can’t be done with a postcard or regular envelope. Our clients report significantly higher returns than with traditional mail, and in today’s economic environment that speaks louder than cost savings.

Let me take you back to the auction company’s direct marketing package.  Through a tedious process of what can only be described as “marketing whitewashing”, the package we had put together was slowy torn apart. The buckslip disappeared, the letterhead logo was turned to black and white, and the envelope shrank. We sent out a sub-par package and our results reflected that. It was really disappointing, and I was furious with management.  In looking back, the blame was actually on our marketing department, not on the management that had torn the original package apart. We had done nothing to demonstrate the importance of the more expensive package and we also didn’t know for sure what a response was really worth. Without those numbers we had no way to make the case for spending more.

Each time we attend direct marketing trade shows and events we inevitably here from a few marketers who repeat the same line, “we love your work but could never afford it”. To that point I like to remind people that if one of our solutions can dramatically increase your response rates what exactly is it that you can’t afford?

The USPS is appealing to the regulatory commission to allow for another postal rate increase. Though the rate increase was originally rejected, the USPS argues it needs the increase to continue 6 day mail service and to help fill an enormous budget deficit. Those who get hit hardest with a rate hike are not the average joe that mails a few letters a week, but rather it’s the direct mailers that help subsidize the rates for everyone else in the first place. With unpredictable postal rates and regulations it seemed like an appropriate time to tell you how Structural Graphics handles this.

The core of our business has always been our dimensional direct mail designs. We work with many direct mailers from Fortune 100 companies to local small businesses. Regardless of the size of the business, clients are always seeking ways to save on postal rates. So how do we help?

Structural Graphics employs a team of postal experts that work with our designers and our clients to find the greatest opportunities for savings. It may be something as simple as dropping the mail in a specific region of the country for the most efficiency. Or perhaps it’s changing the design of a mailer by a quarter of an inch to get a better rate. Whatever the case, the focus is always on getting the most bang for your buck.

Yet another way SG helps beat high postal rates is through our core product offerings. We offer a wide variety of high-impact, proven designs that can qualify for a flat mail rate. You may be thinking, “Hey dimensional is big and bulky, so it must be expensive to ship”. Or you could be thinking, “Snooki is really talented, she needs her own show”. In either case, you would be wrong. While I can’t do anything about the Jersey Shore, I can take you through a few great examples of high-impact mailers that ship flat.

The Extendo® is one of our most popular designs. It is highly customizable and offers the maximum amount of space in the smallest package. Video speaks louder than words so check out this video to see it in action.

The Flapper® is a classic design and has been a proven performer for years. Four selling panels flip into each other allowing you to tell a story and captive the user. It can be designed in several sizes and ships completely flat. Check it out.

The Book-Cube™ is always a crowd pleaser and packs a heck of a punch in a flat package. It offers six selling panels and many customization options. Watch it pop!

These are just some of our designs that ship flat, but we have quite a few more. The point is, don’t let the postal rates drive you into mailing a postcard or letter when you have options! If you have an idea for a design but are concerned about postal rates please drop us an email. Tell us about your project and we’ll discuss it with our postal experts and designers to come up with a plan that promises both high-impact and reasonable shipping rates.

Ten years ago it was a bonus if a business had a website, but today it’s an absolute must. Websites have become so easy and inexpensive to produce. Web development is no longer shrouded under a veil of mystery. It’s a large industry and there are a lot of resources out there for every size business.  Everyone has a website, people, businesses, products and politicians. So it comes as no surprise that even your marketing is in need of a website too.

One of biggest mistakes in online advertising (such as Pay Per Click) is driving your leads to your website’s homepage. The exact same rule applies to off-line marketing. You have to walk your leads right to the information they want, or you promised them.  The best way to do this is to give your marketing campaigns its own website, i.e. landing pages.

Many of our clients have begun to realize the benefits of creating special landing pages to accompany their high-impact direct mail. Most of the landing pages we design are PURLs or Personalized URL’s. The direct mail and email components of a campaign will invite users to visit their PURL to get more information, sign up for something, or introduce them to a product or service. The PURL’s offer a personal experience for the end user and allow clients to deliver relevant content to each of their prospects.

PURL’s and landing pages also give the marketer the ability to truly measure the effectiveness of a campaign. Instead of waiting for a response via traditional methods (phone calls or BRCs) marketers get instant feedback from their campaigns. Furthermore, leads are delivered electronically making follow up easier.

There are plenty of companies out there that setup PURLs and landing pages. But you may not have known that Structural Graphics can provide this service as well. Not only that, but since our designers work closely with the folks that are designing your high-impact direct mail campaign, you can work with one contact who will make sure your direct mail, emails and landing pages all share the same design. You’ll get a truly integrated campaign that comes to life under one roof. Well, we have several roofs throughout the country, but a lot of the magic happens here in Essex, CT.

Click here to see a recent Integrated Campaign case study.

The US Postal Service is facing a net income loss of $3.9 billion this year and a projected loss of $7 billion in 2011. Many proposals have been made to save this organization, but the most likely will be a cut in services and a raise in postal rates. The effect this will have on direct mailers is enormous and what’s worse, it may only further the downward spiral into an eventual non-existence.

Cutting the deliver days from six to five (eliminating Saturday service) is projected to save the USPS $1.9 to $3 billion annually. But most business owners will tell you that cutting services will only turn away customers and exacerbate the problem.

Airlines have been trying this for years. To deal with enormous losses, most airlines have cut services like food, drinks and even pillows. They have levied extra charges on passengers for everything from picking your seat online to being overweight. The net result? Customer satisfaction ratings for major airlines are at an all time low and revenues aren’t much better.

For those who like to stroll down to the mailbox in your boxers and torn Metallica t-shirts on Saturday morning, fear not. The 5-day deliver plan will likely never become a reality. The two postal employee unions have lobbied hard against this reform and have even offered up pension decreases in place of one less delivery day. Furthermore, there isn’t a lot of political will for the plan, as many members of Congress have come out against it.

So why not just raise rates? This too is a push further down that spiral of death for the USPS, but also a slap in the face of their best customers. As it stands now, commercial mail makes up 85% of all mail, thus it subsidies the cost of mail delivery for everyone else. This means that without commercial mail, the average First Class letter would cost roughly $2.90.

When I was younger I used to help my father label and stamp brochures for his business. We would do hundreds of them by hand then drive them down to the post office. Ironically, this was always on a Saturday morning, but that’s beside the point. I can remember my dad always saying how the postal rates for bulk mailers like him were ridiculously high and that it was totally unfair that he paid the same rate as his father who mails about two letters a month.  His point, now twenty-five years old, is still valid in 2010. Of course, I know there are discounts for pre-sorting and other mail handling things you can do, but these are discounts for simply taking on more of the USPS’ responsibility. Why wouldn’t there be a discount for that?

Perhaps a rate increase is appropriate for the “once in a while” mailer who really doesn’t keep the ship afloat. For direct mailers, a rate increase is just unfair. Raising rates will only see an increase in marketers abandoning direct mail, for less traditional mediums. Again, this brings us to our spiral. Or maybe black hole is a better metaphor. Nothing escapes a black hole’s enormous gravity, not even bad business.

To read more about this subject, DMNews has compiled a long list of articles and commentaries.

By, Andres Aguirre

In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, many companies and businesses are relying more on their brands to stand out and to differentiate themselves among their competitors. The necessity of a strong customer relationship with the brand has never been more important, and a mixed multimedia presence is required in order to create and maintain such relationships. The economic recession heavily impacted many businesses and the most direct result was usually a slice to their ad spend. And while most companies dropped advertising and marketing from the top of their lists, the ones who saw the most success and a faster recovery were the ones who were able to sustain a consistent branded presence throughout several communication channels – including direct mail.

Direct mail marketing has the advantage of being easily targeted in a very accurate manner, delivering extremely efficient campaigns and high returns on investment as opposed to a radio ad or TV ad, or online banners for example. However, some industry experts have expressed concern over the future of direct mail advertising, and reasonably so. With today’s constantly evolving and diversifying media landscape made possible by mobile broadband internet, it’s no wonder why more and more people are reading their mail, newspapers, and magazines online. After all, it costs less and it’s much easier to deliver content over the web.

Yet, there are some things that simply cannot be translated; some sort of immutable and irreplaceable properties of the medium itself that are somehow lost in translation. Paper is something tangible that you can feel, pick up, turn, fold, and manipulate in ways that are simply impossible with a pdf file. There is no way to translate these aspects into the digitized format – it’s fundamentally different. A computer can help you collect, organize, and visualize complex data into a coherent and apparently similar form, but it also has the ability to malfunction and to distort information. You can’t feel, taste, or smell the internet, and you don’t get nearly as much junk mail as you do junk e-mail. On the internet it is easy to get lost in the virtually limitless amounts of information, infinite numbers of web pages, and vast quantities of user-generated content, whereas traditional print is strictly bound to what is transcribed. No hyperlinks or pop-up ads to take you away to another dimension.

My point is- there are some very elemental differences between our digital worlds of new media and ‘traditional’ media formats. A new emulation or digital incarnation of a preexistent medium should by no means be taken as a substitution for it. This should never happen. Instead it should be seen as an additional communicative tool, another channel by which to reach prospective clients and customers, and obtain feedback, information, and research.

So don’t be in a huge rush to move all your ads to Facebook. Instead of assuming that one medium can perfectly replace another, pursue the creative, interactive, and integrated use of all media. The key to a long and prosperous brand life is taking advantage of the multiple communication channels that are available, and using them to their full potential in order to introduce your brand message and personality – or in short – a consistent integrated multimedia presence.

The USPS announced last year that they were working on a plan to reduce the postal service delivery days to five, instead of the six we have now. Since then there has been vibrant debate on both sides of the issue. Some saying that the cost savings are a necessary step to reducing the multi-billion dollar losses each year. Others believe the measure goes too far and will ultimately hurt the USPS by reducing dependency on the mail service.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue it looks like you have at least six months to mull it over. Nothing happens quickly in Washington and the Postal Regulatory Commission is no exception. They have just announced a six month review period to discuss the effects of the proposal. In that time they will conduct town hall meetings in several major cities, hold hearings with Congress and review with major stakeholders.

What do you think about the issue? Will it affect the direct mail industry? Sound off below!

I recently participated in a webinar about direct mail and ways to improve response rates. All of the advice the speaker offered was sound, but he was missing one fundamental aspect of direct mail. Your direct mail needs to get noticed to work.

In my mind there is no question that direct mail needs to stand out from the usual clutter in your mailbox. Take for example a recent Dunkin Donuts flyer I received in the mail. I was sifting through my stack of bills, insurance and credit card offers when I noticed the glossy mailer with a large picture of a cup of coffee and muffin. I grabbed it without hesitation and stuck it to the front of my refrigerator with a large fish-magnet. In fact, the next morning I was tearing out one of the coupons and graciously offered to pick my wife up one of her favorite muffins, the chocolate chip. I don’t know how she can enjoy that in the morning, but I digress. Her only response was to point out that I had hung the flyer over the picture of my daughter.

Unless your offer includes something as tasty as coffee and a muffin, you’re going to need something more. A high-impact mailer offers the opportunity to grab the recipient’s attention and engage them. How could you possibly ignore a pop-up Bookcube™ that jumps into place when an envelope is opened up, or a mesmerizing Flapper™ that can fold into itself over and over? These are the type of mailers that get pulled out of the pile. The ones that translate your message visually. Furthermore, the recipient will usually hang onto a direct mail piece if it’s different and likely to show it to someone else.

Most direct mail marketers can offer their tips for improving a piece’s response rate. Of course, there are crucial elements like your offer and the quality of the list. But there is one fundamental truth about direct mail that will never change. Your piece has to get noticed. Without that, everything else is moot.

We produced a pop-up cube mailer for Nissan to promote the launch of their new Cube vehicle. The cool thing about the mailer is that it shipped flat and then automatically popped up into a dimensional cube when the envelope was opened up. The cubic shape of the mailer tied in perfectly with Nissan Cube’s look and branding. The mailer is on YouTube and has generated over 9,000 views. Check it out!