Tag Archive for: custom postcard printing

Why Direct Mail is the Ultimate Form of Marketing

Marketing has come a long way in the last 30 years. The internet has invented all kinds of new ways to put your product or service in front of consumers. But even with these flashy new marketing tools there has always been one way to get your product noticed, direct mail.

What is direct mail?

Advertising through the mail is as old as the postal service itself. It involves creating physical promotional material and sending it to prospective customers to drive business and increase awareness for your product or service. This form of marketing can be in the form of postcards, brochures, letters, flyers, newsletters, catalogs, coupon envelopes, and packages, is indirectly unsolicited through the use of mailing lists which leads to it sometimes being referred to as “junk mail.” But its versatility and its ability to sell has remained strong.

What is so great about direct mail services?

It is the perfect substitute for an actual sales person – In fact it may be even better. A good seller will go to a prospect, educate the prospect about your product, show them the benefits answer questions, and actively close the sale. But the physical presence of a salesperson, goading the prospect for the sale, presenting a sometimes heavy and sometimes misguided pitch, may turn a prospect off. Some consumers want the information, but they could do without the pressure. This is where direct mail can work as a salesperson. It presents the information, even gives the customer something they can show to friends and relatives and puts the decision to buy in their hands. Let them come to you because one they have decided they have interest, it is easy to close.

The look of your materials will say a lot about your product – Consumers will equate a slick, well designed direct mail piece to your company as a competent business, and your product as the best at what it does. Your marketing piece represents who and what your business is about so if you are offering a high-quality, professional service, your mailing needs to reflect that.

People love getting mail – And by sending them a direct marketing piece, you can be reasonably sure that the piece will reach its audience as opposed to an email that is either ignored, automatically sorted to junk mail, or immediately deleted.

With direct mail, you are bringing your message to its exact audience – Think of it as using a pencil to draw a picture instead of a can of spray paint. Your mailing lists can be one that you have cultivated yourself from former customers or one that you buy from a source that has tailored it to the exact audience you want.

It isn’t as expensive as you might think – Here is where Presort can help. If you are interested in a direct mailing campaign, we will help you make it a reality. Call us today and speak to our marketing experts about how you want your product presented, what other marketing your business uses, and your goals for your direct mailing campaign. We can design a campaign that will help you accomplish them.

6 Reasons Why Inventory Management is Important

Businesses keep inventory on hand for a variety of reasons, perhaps it is needed to quickly fill special orders, or respond to an unanticipated demand, or maybe to supply spare parts quickly. Whatever the reason, your inventory management systems are vital to responding to these market demands quickly and efficiently. If you find your inventory methods are lacking, here are some reasons why it is important.

Increase employee efficiency – It is 5pm on a Friday and a customer calls for a replacement part. They are willing to pay more to expedite it, but it needs to be there Saturday afternoon at the latest. How does your business respond? Without an organized inventory process your business will find it difficult to respond to opportunities on these and profit from them. Your employees will spend the majority of their time digging through files and spreadsheets to make sure the product is available and in stock. Getting it there isn’t the issue, knowing you have it to send, is.

You will be able to close out more sales – If you are not sure exactly what is in stock and at what quantity, an employee can tell a customer that an item is out of stock when in fact it is available. A customer can be sent to a wrong store that should have an item, but your system isn’t capable of answering those kinds of questions.

You will be able to deliver on time – When your customer orders something and is told their products will arrive between a wide range of dates, it shows your company is not organized enough to fulfill a simple aspect of selling goods. This isn’t just poor customer service, it is bad business. Instead, a proper inventory management system will give you the ability to not only pinpoint a date for delivery but gives you the means to hit that target.

It is clear where your inventory is – It may seem like good customer service when one of your locations is out of an item and calls another to see if it is in stock there. On the surface this appears to be going the extra mile to help a customer, but the real issue is your system doesn’t allow them to know for certain that the item is there. A good inventory system will allow them to see this in real time and respond accordingly.

You will be able to order the correct amounts from vendors – Reorder points can be sent with ease when you have a solid inventory management system. This reduces cost when you are ordering things unnecessarily either through not knowing how much you have, or not ordering enough.

No need to duplicate purchase orders – A sophisticated inventory management system will either generate purchase orders automatically when your inventory levels hit a reorder point or allow you to create one from drop down menus which lowers the potential for errors.

Even small businesses that keep a minimal inventory on hand would benefit from even the most basic of inventory management systems.  Presort can help you find the right software and implement the right procedures to make sure that this aspect of your business is a strength and not a weakness.

Why Direct Mail Matters for Your Political Campaign

Direct Mail Political Campaigns Are More Effective Than You Think!

Political ads—you see them all the time, good or bad. This candidate hates puppies; how can they possibly be trusted to run our great state? Or, since they announced their candidacy for Governor, over five people have said that they’ve personally witnessed him pick his nose in public!!! Is this someone you want making decisions for your taxes?  It’s easy to think that this is the only way a political campaign is won (or lost—who would vote for someone who hates puppies?), but a lot of elections come down to more than just commercials. After all, buying up ad space on TV can cost a fortune, and a lot of candidates don’t have room in their budget for just one type of campaign.

That’s where political mailing lists can be a huge boon for your campaign—instead of a big, fancy (and mean) ad, pivot to a medium that’s plenty reliable and only costs a fraction of the price. We’ve outlined some of the key benefits of a direct mail campaign, and what steps you need to take to make sure that your targeted audience reads and listens to what you have to say.

Effective, cost-controlled marketing

When you’re deciding which direction to go in for your political campaign, your budget is undoubtedly one of the most important things that you need to consider. Why waste all your money on one medium, when you can diversify your options while still reaching your target audience? Direct mail is a cost-effective method of reaching the people you want to reach. Compiling a mailing list is relatively easy—you can choose voters that are active participants in local politics (you can see how many elections they’ve voted in recently), which party they vote for, what precinct they voted in, and where they’re registered to vote.

How to avoid the garbage can with your mail

Now that you’ve determined who you want to target with your mail campaign, how do you make sure they don’t immediately toss it away, never to be read again? While some voters that take a little more time to read what you have to say, the vast majority of recipients will barely skim your mail before throwing it away almost immediately. There’s not much that you can do to change what people do with their mail (some people would rather not receive mail at all), but you can certainly change the content of your letter to get your message across more effectively. You want to let your voters know why you’re running for office in as little time as possible—delivering a message that is too granular, issue-specific, you risk accelerating your trip to the trash can. Two key parts of a direct mail campaign are:

  • Raising name awareness
  • Highlighting your message/emphasizing negatives about your opponent

If there’s one thing you want the reader to see, it’s your name. Soon, they might be asked, “are you voting in the local election?” They may not have the best idea yet, but at the very least they’ll know your name. If there’s another thing that you want them to see, it’s what you do well, or what your opponent doesn’t do well. As long as you’re effective in your brand positioning, you’ll be able to reach the audience you want with minimal hassle.

 

Millennials and Direct Mailing

The internet is an indispensable part of everyday life for nearly everyone. Some more so than others, as millennials are spending a lot of time online, reading blogs, browsing social media, reading email. The internet provides everything that used to be done by leaving the house. If you had a question about a topic you went to the library and looked it up. Entire networks were based around buying but you still had to leave the house to do most of your shopping. And when it comes to letters and postcards, do millennials read their snail mail, or even know it exists? Why would a generation used to instant gratification have any patience for direct mail marketing?

The fact is that direct mail is an extremely effective tool for reaching consumers of any age or demographic, including young people. Millennials respond well to direct marketing and here is why.

They respond well to targeted advertising – Just as Google uses your browsing history to prompt advertising, so does direct mail, albeit in physical form. The same online methods used to gather consumer data that allows brands to target individual consumers with accuracy can be used to great effect with direct mailing campaigns. Instead of sending mass postcards, marketers can clearly define an audience and tailor the message to them.

There is no substitute for physical marketing materials – Rather than being gradually replaced by online advertising, postcards and brochures are integrated with online materials creating a combined experience into a unified brand. All a postcard needs to direct an interested millennial to more information, or an online order form, is a QR code and a spare minute.

Individuals that grew up in the digital world still read the mail – Even mailings that are considered “junk mail” are still read and sorted by millennials on a daily basis. And the response rate for millennials to direct mailing campaigns is equal to or in some cases greater than older generations.

Direct mail gives you the opportunity to show off your brand – You can be authentic in direct mailing offerings.  Since you control the entire message, how it is presented, and most importantly, who gets it, you can use the opportunity to show a strong, cohesive brand identity which is something that appeals to millennials. When you treat your customer as a human being, create a sense of connection with the individual consumer, and humanize your brand, you are appealing to this new demographic regardless of how long your brand has been around.

Millennials don’t ignore snail mail because it is old, they do so because it is irrelevant to them. Your marketing can be tailored specifically to this demographic and with precise market research and a fantastic and eye-catching design, your direct mailing campaign can indeed reach millennials. Call Presort today. We know how to design a campaign that will help you achieve these goals.