The Six Secrets of No-Surprise Printing

The Six Secrets of No-Surprise Printing

by | Jun 7, 2021 | Creative strategies, Direct marketing, Headlines, Sales

Even When Using Digital Printing… it pays to plan.

Methods

Successful print jobs are all about planning and communication. If you plan carefully and communicate exactly what you want, it is unlikely that you will need an expensive do over by a problem or disappointment later.

Number One.

The first step is to have a rational idea of the physical piece you want to create. That means determining the size, shape, folds, and other characteristics. For anything more complicated than a flat sheet, it is wise to create a dummy or mock-up to make sure that pages and folds are where you want them to be.

Number Two.

If you are printing for a mailing, a mock-up helps to ensure that the individual pieces will fit in the envelope properly. It can also help determine the type of printing equipment, such as die cutting or masking that will be a much-needed impact. Simple steps now could lead to savings to make the printing process more efficient. Changing the dimensions, for example, could allow a piece to be printed on a smaller press to save money. Check with the post office or your direct mailer. Non-Traditional size and shape mailers may require a special rate.

Number Three.

Proofing is also important. It is often tempting to rush when you are working under a deadline, but it is always better (and much cheaper) to correct a mistake before printing begins. Show your last design to several people, include those who have not worked on the project. Their input will be fresh and objective. Look for the usual spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Carefully check the headline and subheads. Most important, be sure that all vital information is correct, including phone number, return address, postal indicia, and bar codes. 

Number Four.

One common mistake is to include photos that look good on a computer screen, but which do not print well on a press. For most, you will need photos or graphics with 300 dpi resolution. Always use stock or vector images from a reputable company. If the budget permits, hire a photographer, designer, or direct marketing mail copyrighter. Make sure they sign off the rights of their property to your firm.

Number Five.

When submitting your design file for printing, you must include not only the file but all the attached files, including fonts, photos, graphics, and logos. Check early on with your printer what they need to get what you want to achieve. Just because it is digital, printers need to follow a protocol to get the best-looking printed material.

Number Six.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that printing involves putting ink onto paper. The ink and paper you use will affect the last look. You cannot rely on how a design appears on a computer screen. Paper can come in various colors, thicknesses, and textures which affect the last appearance of printing. When in doubt, ask for samples before you begin the design and writing process.

Please share with others–except your competition!

Direct marketing copy is like a puzzle.

Sharing my time with you is not over at the end of a post. There are many ideas I experienced in owning a small business. My ideas about using and writing direct marketing and customer-centric copy are intertwined in the marketing, advertising, and selling content, articles, reports based on my philosophy of people learn by reading, then learn by doing.

Please join our Direct2Customers Marketing Community today!

Learning by reading and doing, marketing, and selling ideas, is what you will find in your Direct2Customer Community. Join us today by clicking on the button.

This is what I do and what I love to do.

Thanks again for reading. Questions?

Mdoc@direct2customers.com or 800-251-3608

JOIN US

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Are Today’s Customers Harder to Reach?

Are Today’s Customers Harder to Reach?

by | Jun 6, 2021 | Analytics, Communication channels, Creative strategies, CRM, Customer-centric strategy, Data, direct mail, email tactics, Headlines, Personalize data marketing, Selling

Maybe it is time for another look at traditional marketing to thrive and survive!

The competition today is humongous!

In our history as a nation, for example in the 1800s, all selling was face-to-face. Store owners studied customer purchases to determine their likes and not so likes of goods and services. Sounds simple, because it was, then.

Now fast forward to the present. It is difficult to get a grasp on why and what a potential customer would buy. There is a loss of useful, outmoded communication channels seceded by the internet and all things technology.

Further, the competition today is humongous. Customers shopping at stores is low, B2B company industry shows are trying to make a comeback, trade publications are disappearing or bought out, and a small business is erratic with selling goods or closed for good.

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The timing is right getting back to the basics.

When I put my thoughts together for this post, I realized how much has changed since the pandemic reached our shores in the first quarter of 2020. Companies, big and small, had a very difficult time on how to communicate with prospects and customers. Try this, do that, or even maybe this will work.

Hopefully, the time is right for a change. The pandemic may wind down as we approach the summer of 2021. Fresh cases of Covid-19 are at their low and in single digits of deaths in Illinois. People vaccinated twice are slightly over 50%.

Selling to people in the 1800s.

The biggest takeaway from the 19th Century was face-to-face selling. In the B2B industry, a person may sell a high-cost product or service. The salesperson usually receives a lot of objections. A good salesperson studies his customers and their company. He must know how to react to the objections.

With negotiations, both people must know as much as possible about each other. Each person wants to walk away as a winner.

So, what is different today? We have the technology to meet face-to-face. For example, any good salesperson would say, “I need to set the table on why my product or service is better.” A small ticket price salesperson must also set a table to get a sale. It is not what you know or who you know, it is what you know about the person you are selling to. What does he know about you?

Look at what other companies are doing.

To become a useful tool, you must transform data into information that can help drive strategic direct marketing and selling programs, financial decisions, and product development. To minimize manual data collection and conserve resources, a company should focus on metrics for readily available data.

In today’s direct and digital marketing, data will capture information needed to drive decisions. The idea of having a good marketing automation tool to capture more data at a reasonable price is a worthwhile investment. The Pareto Principal comes into play when you collect data. Twenty percent of your customers usually provide eighty percent of your revenue. Buy a CRM or database and build one today.

Adding value-oriented work habits.

When you summarize feedback in charts, graphs, or simple to understand language, you’ll always know the score. You know if you’re winning or losing–and to what degree. 

Go get’em slugger!

Useful methods of setting a table for a sale.

  1. Printed Materials. If you have not printed marketing materials in sometime, there are many knowledgeable printers to help you with paper ideas, paper types, color, black and white, sizes, postal requirement and so forth. Look up a direct mail company who process mail for delivery is a logical choice.
  2. Contact List. Every business needs a customer and prospect list. The average list may lose 20% of contacts each year. You can count on over 20% based on the present pandemic. Before you do any mailing, search your current customers from accounting. Compare each list and update your mailing customer list. That is just a start. See #5.
  3. Direct Marketing Mail. Whether a large or small business direct mail can deliver. For example, get creative with printed materials. Get creative with the envelope or other size package, so when it reaches the person’s hand and eyes, they have creative printed material, such as a call-to-action.
  4. Communication Channels. Besides mail you should add additional communication channels such as email, landing pages, your website, telephone, zoom, video such as You Tube and other digital marketing techniques. Your choices are many, but it all depends on what your contacts prefer.
  5. Data Management. Personalization assumes that you know something about the people to whom you are mailing, emailing, or sending to a landing page and so on. It is an effective way to keep customers spending their money on your products and services.

Summary

Yes, there are more. However, without having a good contact list, your results are not always what they could be. The key point in any of the communication channels is personalization. You need to collect customer data, such as what channel (email, mail, etc) is the best revenue channel.

A database, such as a CRM, will disclose more about your customers and prospects. Think about using segments in your CRM. Start simple. For example, what buyers are in the top 20% of revenue. They may have different copy than the other 80%.

Here is a collection of articles and posts for each of the five tactical tools from the list above.

mdoc@direct2customers.com

Digital Printing…it pays to plan. The secrets of no surprise printing.
Contact List. Data is GOLD found within your customers and sales prospects...
Direct Marketing Mail. The postal service reminds us...
Communication Channels. Here’s how to use a secret...
Data Management. Valuable pointers that will help...
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Please share with others–except your competition!

Direct marketing copy is like a puzzle.

Sharing my time with you is not over at the end of a post. There are many ideas I experienced in owning a small business. My ideas about using and writing direct marketing and customer-centric copy are intertwined in the marketing, advertising, and selling content, articles, reports based on my philosophy of people learn by reading, then learn by doing.

Please join our Direct2Customers Marketing Community today!

Learning by reading and doing, marketing, and selling ideas, is what you will find in your Direct2Customer Community. Join us today by clicking on the button.

This is what I do and what I love to do.

Thanks again for reading. Questions?

Mdoc@direct2customers.com or 800-251-3608

JOIN US

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Why do I Share Content?

Why do I Share Content?

by | May 29, 2021 | Copy content, Creative strategies, CRM, Customer-centric strategy, Direct marketing mail strategy, Selling

Why Not?

In larger companies, such as ACE Hardware or State Farm Insurance, you will most likely find a human resources title, such as marketing manager, to accomplish the marketing planning goals set by upper management.

In small business, maybe 2, 15, 50 or 500 employees or an owner of one, another person anointed with organization leadership, is the marketing manager. This person knows his customers at a higher level than anyone with the title of marketing manager in big business. HE or SHE knows a happy customer is a great customer. The more they know about their customers is critical for success.

We all need feedback.

Owning a small business, I always needed to receive feedback from my marketing tips. Such as in my blog, website, newsletters, email, or discussions with customers and prospects. I have three principles of marketing/sales that always work.

  1. Learn by reading.
  2. Learn by doing.
  3. Find a solution for a problem.

The Marketing Doc name was a label from an eye doctor while I was gathering information from him to build a marketing and advertising program for his small practice, in 1994. “I can’t treat a patient until I find the problem. Your questions helped me think about the future of my practice. You must be a Marketing Doctor.”

In the beginning of my business in 1984, I created a series of questions and started building my first small business manual marketing workbook, CustomMark. These were exploring questions to learn more about prospects looking for marketing and selling help. I changed the name and added new content two other times since the early nineties, but the latest, Custom-Made Marketing, is the sixth edition.

The answers to questions tell me a story of their usage of marketing, advertising, and sales. I look at marketing as everything you do to get more customers strategically. For example, getting a database or CRM to build a customer-centric strategy. Segment your customers and prospects, develop customer profiles, and consider training your employees who sell using tactics of solution selling.

Learn by reading, learn by doing, and learn how to become a solution provider for your prospect and customers.

I see smaller traffic to my new blog, on Direct2customers.com, Blog-MarketingDoc. I had over 10.000 readers on marketingdoc.net blog, but still trying to surpass it on this blog. So, I’ll share two blog posts on October 2020. Just click on the Two Blog Posts button under this content.

I hope you find them interesting and meaningful to your business. If not, please let me know. If you have a question or an idea to discuss, you can reach me via email, Mdoc@direct2customers.com or 800.251. 3608.

When you join our marketing community, you’ll have a variety of content to read, plus it is free to join.

“I always write content that helps people work better and reach their goals.”

 MarketingDoc

Two blog posts coming right up, hot off the press
Subscribe to Direct 2 Customers Community Today!

Please share with others–except your competition!

Direct marketing copy is like a puzzle.

Sharing my time with you is not over at the end of a post. There are many ideas I experienced in owning a small business. My ideas about using and writing direct marketing and customer-centric copy are intertwined in the marketing, advertising, and selling content, articles, reports based on my philosophy of people learn by reading, then learn by doing.

Please join our Direct2Customers Marketing Community today!

Learning and doing, marketing, and selling ideas, is what you will find in your Direct2Customer Community. Join us today by clicking on the button.

This is what I do and what I love to do.

Thanks again for reading. Questions?

Mdoc@direct2customers.com or 800-251-3608

JOIN US
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Why do I Share Content?

How Every Direct Marketing Strategy Will Perform in Your Business…

by | Apr 21, 2021 | Analytics, Copy content, Customer-centric strategy, Database, Direct marketing mail, Personalize data marketing, Selling

by adding value-oriented work habits as learn by reading and learn by doing.

Here's 4 reasons.

Out in the country, nestled between farms, silos and other tall structures, the wind can change direction in a moment’s notice.

Change. Not the kind in your pocket or purse. More like the movement and direction of the wind. Plus, even in your audience and customer contact list.

How do you plan for a change? You have a plan?

You can pick up a book pertaining to your situation. So, if that is your choice, you decided on learning by reading. Depending on the answers you are searching for, that can be a smidgeon of books or thousands of books deemed for your situation.

You might try a search on your browser of choice. If you are lucky and found some interesting reading, you still need to determine if it is right for you. I did not say this would be easy.

 

All good things come in 4's

Check out additional information on proofing by clicking here for a copy of Direct Marketing Success newsletter, Vol 18, No.34, “Four Simple Steps to Sharpen Your Proofing Skills and Keep Your Good Reputation Intact.” In addition, you will find 3 more articles, “Ready to Get Serious About Email,” “The Right Time for Business Growth Starts Today,” and “What’s New in Direct Mail?”

DMS Vol 18, No. 34

1. Change inherently happens to a person who plans for change.

For example, people who work in marketing, advertising, or sales comes to mind. Yes, they understand change can happen at a moment’s notice. I was consulting with a firm, which used company employees to proof marketing and sales materials. An employee in accounting found a mistake but did not turn her copy sheet in on time. Unfortunately, they sent it to a print-shop. I recommended to my contact to call the printer and ask for a proof sheet prior to printing.

2. The best copywriting can capture more sales and customers.

These direct marketing professionals have a very strong motivation gene in their DNA to use specific words go after the consumer tooth and nail to make a purchase. It is the powerful copy and presentation of offers no one can refuse.

Each direct marketing copywriter needs a design that aligns with their copy and pulls the reader into direct and digital marketing copy. All direct marketing and mail specialists know the frequency of messages sent on a schedule is incredibly read. They also know, not every direct marketing method will suit every business.

Every contact in your list needs a variation in parts of the copy to get attention. When it happens, it is like finding a pot of gold. I base some variations in customer segments and their profiles in a database. Especially true if you can do it below budget. Check out my post, “The Art of Copywriting.”

The Art of Copywriting.

3. Learn by reading, learn by doing.

Seek to understand your unique audience and customer base. Personalization of your audience and customers used with multi-channel or digital marketing may be a double whammy and produce a significant increase in responses. However, do not forget the intricacies of personalization. Today’s direct marketing must be beneficial to your customers. Memorable messages to your audience with your marketing goals in sight is to learn more about them and to please them.

Read any marketing journal or the many advertising service providers’ daily emails you will find across the board, from small business to the largest companies. Marketing copywriters appear to lack understanding when, how, and why using personalization. Or some writers do not want to know. Memorable messages to your audience with your marketing goals in sight is to learn more about them and to please them.

In today’s data driven marketing era, it is important to capture customer information to drive business and future marketing decisions. When you use personalization wisely and appropriately, it is a powerful direct marketing mail tool that attracts attention, increases readership, and invariably boosts the chances for a response.

For additional information on data and personalization, click here for a copy of Direct Marketing Success newsletter, Vol 17, No.32. And on the front page read, “How to Turn your Customer List into A Dream List.” In addition, you will find 3 additional articles of reading and doing.

  • How to Motivate Your Customers into Action,
  • Quantity vs. Quality and,
  • One Word When Not Used Correctly
Vol 17, No.32

4. A solution provider mindset works well with a learn by reading and learn by doing skill set.

How can a company know if they stage it for complete success for direct and digital marketing? What is a good way to identify gaps in strategy, to repair mistakes that testing brought about, and what they learned from the last campaign that made your strategy not as effective?

Asking questions in the previous paragraph, need solutions. You may have or may wish you would have created testing points, such as response, communication channel tracking and website traffic.

If you are using direct marketing mail plus digital marketing, there are testing methods available from the USPS and response results from Google Analytics. If you used email and website landing pages, there is data to collect from the email provider to gather information on how your website took part in the analysis.

As the questions add up, a wise person would visit Direct2Customers marketing community to kick start learn by reading. Marketing Doc, the librarian, works with each member of the community to find the right marketing articles or content to start on the right path, free. Which then leads to learn by doing.

Seek to understand your unique audience and customer base and then work hard to find the most effective way to serve them.

What are you waiting for? Sign up today. What are you waiting for? Download one or both Direct Marketing Success newsletters now!

Sum-up

View marketing as a science. Whatever product or service you offer your audience, everyone is different. The larger the audience, you must adjust your data collection and analysis. You will need to adjust or add new segments and customer profiles on a schedule. Change comes and goes differently within your audience. You are always reading and always doing.

 

Visit Direct2Customers Marketing community
Follow Me On LinkediN
Visit Our Library of Marketing
Visit Marketing DOC
Custom-made Marketing e-book
JOIN US TODAY + It's FREE

Please share with others–except your competition!

Direct marketing copy is like a puzzle.

Sharing my time with you is not over at the end of a post. There are many ideas I experienced in owning a small business. My ideas about using and writing direct marketing and customer-centric copy are intertwined in the marketing, advertising, and selling content, articles, reports based on my philosophy of people learn by reading, then learn by doing.

Please join our Direct2Customers Marketing Community today!

Learning and doing, marketing, and selling ideas, is what you will find in your Direct2Customer Community. Join us today by clicking on the button.

This is what I do and what I love to do.

Thanks again for reading. Questions?

Mdoc@direct2customers.com or 800-251-3608

JOIN US
Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2021 J. Mike Deuerling
Why do I Share Content?

Direct marketing has hundreds of tactics to reach your customers…

by | Apr 16, 2021 | Creative strategies, Customer-centric strategy, direct mail, Direct marketing, Direct marketing mail strategy

Direct Marketing Has Hundreds of Tactics to Reach Your Customers

More and more companies, big and small, are searching for direct marketing ideas. *

 

The efficiencies of direct marketing led to a long success for many small business marketing firms and importantly, how to make them work for your small business today. Today I read a report that larger companies are eyeing ways to use it as well.

In small businesses today, B2B, healthcare practitioners, start-up companies, and retailers, advertising to the masses is possible but not likely effective. In fact, small business advertising was and still is harder for a small business to function properly and to sustain growth, but even worse in the pandemic.

There is a lot of noise created by the thousands of mid to large companies trying to get the attention of any person and convince them to buy their products. There is no room for a small business to even think of trying.

More about noise.

Did you ever travel with your favorite sports team to an away game? I bet the noise was deafening whenever the home team had the ball, were at bat or handling the puck.

That is a metaphor for the present state of small business advertising today. For your message read or heard by a customer or prospect, you must shout louder than the home team. Here, a small business can never match the advertising dollars of the much larger companies or worse yet, maybe their competition.

Direct marketing techniques are more than a single communication channel.

Direct Marketing is a good defense communication channel when using direct mail. Direct Mail is an important channel of direct marketing, and many of the small businesses that use it will agree. Even the postal service offers programs, such as Informed Delivery and Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) is affordable for the many small business’s market.

“Direct marketing means delivering an opportunity to buy directly to a single customer through any channel that the customer may use or prefer.”

Or what we call, direct 2 customers.

No mid to large corporation would ever use direct marketing in their advertising based on the definition above. But there are looking. Yet, a small business can and should use direct marketing in all their advertising to customers.

Specifically, direct marketing has a variety of tactics to reach customers. A marketing message can gather the reader’s attention with captivating copy, an impactful design, and crafting an offer that is hard for anyone to refuse. Using a website landing page will keep the communication moving to a sale.

If you like that idea, let us look at another strategy when combined with direct marketing to speed up company growth.

Today's small business marketing environment is ideal for using direct marketing.

First, advertising is a tactic of marketing. Everything marketing starts and ends with your customers. You need to listen to them and respond to them. Customers will share their thoughts about your products.

If you believe that this is the “age of the customer,” then it is the perfect time for you to behave like a customer you would love to have as a customer. Ask your customers daily.

As a marketer, the purest, most simple goal you should have is to get a potential customer to receive your marketing message, read the message and make a purchase. Direct marketing’s developed PROVEN strategies and tactical tools for helping customers to respond to your message. Check out the graphic on our web page today.

In summary,

Knowing what type of marketing works well today is not a guarantee for tomorrow. However, when you stay true to your commitment on gaining a better understanding of your customer’s needs and wants, you will always know when a change is in the wind and figure out how to react to it.

*Direct Marketing Solutions Market 2020 Size, Share, Forecast to 2026: MRM//McCann, Acxiom, Leo Burnett, Epsilon, SourceLink, Merkle, Harte-Hanks Direct, Rapp, Wunderman

The market study also includes the detailed data regarding the performance of all the market leaders. For more information, https://www.orbismarketreports.com/sample-request/163321?utm_source=Maia

 

 

This blog post was originally an article published in Direct Marketing Success, Vol.16, No.4, newsletter. The post was updated to to present marketing conditions in 2021.

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