Kevin Gilligan, our VP of Sales, was recently interviewed for DELIVER magazine about the importance of practicing what you preach and the importance of self-promotional campaigns. As he is quoted saying, “We’re out there telling our clients that our type of work can help them improve their results and that they should use dimensional and high impact mail as part of their integrated campaigns. And that’s exactly how we market ourselves.’’ Click here to read the full article.

This year’s Annual Direct Marketing Association Exhibition and Conference is in the history books. The Boston Convention Center is in clean-up mode and all of the exhibitors have packed up and left town. For team-Structural, the show felt different this year. I wasn’t sure what it was until I sat down in my quiet hotel room and reflected on the previous three days.

I don’t have the statistics to backup my claim, but it felt like this year’s show was busier. I know in years past it seemed that most of the people that walked the exhibit hall were exhibitors themselves, almost as if we were putting on the show for each other. But this year the quantity and quality of traffic seemed better.

For the past three years, since the economic downturn, we have (as a nation) talked ourselves into a recession. Every day the major news outlets are keeping score on unemployment numbers, telling heart-wrenching stories of foreclosures and reminding us that times are tough. This is not to say these news outlets are entirely wrong, or make light of it at all. I don’t have my head buried in the sand. However, the news has a strong influence on perception and a negative perception of the economy seems to create a continuous cycle of negative thinking and negative results.

At this year’s DMA conference thousands of marketers from around the globe gathered to learn, share ideas and get motivated. From the response we had at our modest ten-foot island, in a sea of exhibitors, it felt like a renewed sense of excitement was in the air. People from a wide variety of companies visited the booth to tell us about their marketing challenges. The stories ranged from, “we want to do something more exciting”, to, “we need to boost response and find more leads.” In previous years the story was always about shrinking advertising budgets and doing more with less. Not that those aren’t important considerations, but those are defensive strategies, not offensive marketing strategies. This year the tone was positive, forward-thinking and all about trying something new to get better results.

One thing we always love seeing is people bringing by our pre-show mailer and telling us they kept it. We always send out a dimensional pre-show mailer because we practice what we preach. This year we had a pretty exciting offer. We invited marketers to bring us their current campaigns and allow us to bring them back to the office with us. Then, at no cost or obligation to the marketer, our designers and marketing strategists would put together a demo campaign, allowing them to see what they could be doing. Since we did get a nice response and really appreciated those of you who brought by your work, we wanted to invite others to take advantage of this offer. Simply send me an email and I will put you in touch with someone who can coordinate the demo project for you.

For the friends, clients and prospects we talked to, we want to thank you for the motivating and uplifting energy you brought to the show this year. As marketers, we feel rejuvenated and we hope you do to. We know there are still very real challenges in today’s economic climate. But one thing I hope we left for people who visited our booth was a sense of our passion and commitment to the marketing industry. It is this passion that enables us to strive for great results in everything we do.

This year we’re doing something a little different at the DMA show. We’re not going to talk exclusively about us when you visit our booth (732). We want to talk about your campaigns and your marketing challenges.

Instead of passing out squeeze toys or raffling an iPad or setting out a bowl of candy, we’re offering something that will really help you. Bring us your direct mail pieces or other collateral and let us show you how we can turn it into a highly effective dimensional campaign! We’ll take your materials and bring it back to our design and strategy team. In about a week we’ll follow up with you and offer some ideas and design concepts for a new campaign. It’s that simple. There is no obligation to buy anything, you can keep the ideas and concepts if you would like. Just give us the chance to show you something innovative, proven and most importantly, effective.

You may not be aware, but you don’t have to buy a full conference pass to see the show! You can register for an exhibit hall pass for as little as $150.

We hope to see you there!

As many of you know, one of the larger direct marketing events in the US is quickly approaching. This year the Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference is in Boston from October 2nd to the 4th.

Structural Graphics will be there exhibiting, as we have done for many years. It really provides us folks in the marketing department a unique opportunity to talk with clients and prospects directly, get feedback on our marketing programs and hobnob with our fellow direct marketers. For our sales team, they enjoy the time away from their daily grind and also appreciate the opportunity to meet a lot of people in a small amount of time.

We have done a lot of different things at the show throughout the years. I don’t want to call them “gimmicks”, but let’s be honest, we were trying to get people to our booth, just like the hundreds of other exhibitors. One year we had one of our more outgoing paper engineers hang out at the booth and create on-demand dimensional paper designs. Another year we created really funky paper bobble heads. Then using a small Polaroid camera, we took pictures of people who visited the booth and made them their own bobble head. That was so successful, we repeated the campaign the next year.

One thing we never do is wear suits. I know every company has their own idea of what is appropriate trade show etiquette. We have always felt that wearing a suit makes you a bit too formal for the occasion and even a little unapproachable. I have walked by some booths where there were four or five guys in very slick looking suits and I just didn’t feel comfortable walking in the booth. That’s not to say that one of our executives won’t hang out at the booth wearing a jacket and tie. However, if you know any members of our senior management team you know that they are a pretty approachable bunch, tie or no tie.

That’s not to say YOU can’t wear a suit when you come to visit us this year. Wear whatever you want. Pants and shirts are always appreciated. Regardless, we’ll take you into the world of Structural Graphics and show you a few things you may not have seen before. Our goal is to leave you inspired and with fresh ideas for a campaign you may be working on. We’d appreciate it if you swipe your badge so we can send you some samples of our work, but that’s not required.

We hope to see you this year at the DMA show, booth 732.

We were so excited when we found out Ann Nyberg was coming to visit our headquarters in Essex, CT. Ann is a bit of a local celebrity, well really, state-wide celebrity. She has been anchoring the 6pm and 10pm news for WTNH (New Haven) for 24 years. She is not only a news anchor but also an investigative journalist. She reports on stories here in Connecticut, but has also covered several stories that have taken her to places like Cuba and Europe. She could easily pull off one of those “I’m Sort of a Big Deal” t-shirts, but that’s not her style.

So what brought Ann to our little town by the sea? Well, nothing as dramatic as drug busts or political conspiracies, just pop-ups. Ann writes a great blog “Network Connecticut” about local people, places and things. She writes about everything from good food to interesting people and places in the Nutmeg State. We were fortunate enough for her to show interest in our company that has been creating high-impact marketing solutions for more than 30 years. She was really interested in the core of our business, our dimensional print solutions, “pop-ups” as they are usually called.

Ann, we appreciate your visit and your terrific article! Next time you’re in town we’ll take you to our favorite lunch spot, assuming you’re okay with a brief boat ride.

Not to boast or anything, but we were so very excited to find out this morning that we won 2 “Awards of Excellence” at the 16th Annual Communicator Awards that we just had to share the news! The winning pieces were the FlapJack media kit we produced for Cartoon Network and the self-promotional pharmaceutical mailer we produced titled “Tell us where it hurts!”.

The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program honoring creative excellence for Communications Professionals. This awards event has been around for a decade. Communicator Awards receives over 9,000 entries from companies and agencies of all sizes, making it one of the largest awards of its kind in the world.

Categories include print, video, integrated campaigns and audio. Click here to learn more about this event.