It’s usually hard to pick favourites, but in 2010 three projects really stood out. Of these, one has already been written up in a marketing magazine, another will be written up in a different marketing magazine in about two weeks, and the other was a special personalized piece placed within a magazine.

I am going to share each of these projects with you, but hold back a little on the one to be featured in the upcoming magazine issue.

Die Cuts Proved That Unaddressed Admail Can Bring Outstanding Results

Investing in clients is always worthwhile. Last year we hosted a few free seminars, focusing on innovative DM techniques. One of these was attended by a couple of friends from the agency Bev Rock, Media Buyer.

If you know me, you’ll know that I squawk a lot about custom die cuts – they’re cool, they show innovation and they get attention. Bev Rock and her team picked up on this and had two fabulous dies made for Noble Insurance (with offices in Alliston, Barrie, Collingwood and Elmvale ON) – one an elegant and appealing house and the other a 50’s style automobile. Using 3 variations of these dies, they dropped Unaddressed Admail pieces at roughly one-month intervals, to the same target groups. They achieved excellent results and having repeated one variation of the same campaign already, we will be doing another one this spring. Yowsers, that’s great! This campaign is featured in an article that I wrote for the January 2011 issue of Direct Marketing News. Check out page 18. You can download it here, but please note that the entire issue is about 10 megs.

Personalized Postcards Inside Magazine Made Readers Feel Special

Both Matt and I have written extensively on the effective use of personalization and this next project went above and beyond marrying this with:

- a very cool custom die cut
- placed on top of the advertisers display ad inside a magazine
- where the die cut card matched the display ad

Wow!

Should you have missed it, I wrote a blog post on this project back in October, 2010.

This was everything that a project should be with excellent data (kudos again to those maintaining it), subtle personalization (using only a greeting name and community name) and a great die cut card that got attention. One of the readers actually contacted the advertiser to let him know that it made him feel special and that’s what personalization is all about! A final note on personalization. If you use it, don’t go overboard, because that can have the opposite effect.

Message In A Bottle Campaign Yields Extraordinary ROI

You can learn a lot more about this extraordinary campaign when it is featured in a marketing magazine in about two weeks.

Until then, we can tell you that YES, these were full-size wine bottles. We did not have a report of a single broken bottle. We helped to develop a very effective four-step program to maximize results. It was very expensive, the ROI was extraordinary and we shipped a lot of bottles.

Promise to say more in a couple of weeks!

Lots of Other Great Stuff

Glad to say that there were many other exciting projects at Highland Marketing in 2010.

We can’t forget our friends at Grand River Raceway in Elora. They used a couple of our oval postcard shapes together with some great design work and a special offer that had their dining room hopping. I can attest to this, because my wife and I were there!

Pillow boxes became more popular too. We were one of the first to ship product samples in pillow boxes and we saw more new uses of pillow boxes in 2010 and helped to design a few for new projects. Apart from the graphics and copy, which must look good, we did a lot of “behind” the scenes work coming up with cool spacers to avoid crushing during shipping. After all, the physical packages must also look good when they arrive in the consumers’ hands. Oh yes, Allen our resident mathematician came up with a super program that allows us to calculate the flat width of a pillow box, given the desired popped-up height and popped-up width. Very cool!

We were also delighted with the evolution of our overall fulfillment services in 2010. And, through some analysis of Addressed Admail delivery times in late 2010, we have come up with a computer program that allows us to minimize costs, while using a combination of Addressed Admail and Lettermail to ensure that delivery times are being met. Timing for this is perfect, as we are experiencing a significant increase in our 2011 sample fulfillment projects.

Okay, time to give thanks to our clients as well as the very cool and gifted agency folks that we work with – first for putting their faith in us and secondly for listening to some of our ideas and allowing us to be more than just a mailing house.

Although young, 2011 is already rockin’ and we look forward to more innovative and exciting projects. We have also brought back our survey services and look forward to working with clients and agencies to help them find out what people really want, enabling them to fine tune their products and services and deliver the messages that people want to hear.

One day boarding an airplane, a steward came to his seat, addressed Jim by name and asked him to complete a paper survey. Jim said he would be happy to, but then he looked at the survey. It asked his name, frequent flier number, what flight he was on, his destination, whether he had to change planes, and so forth –information that the airline knew, but the survey firm didn’t. This made the survey seem as tedious as filling out a form.

The Royal United Hospital in Bath, England, sent a household a survey asking the patient to rate his recent operation. Tragically, the patient had died in surgery. His widow was not amused to receive the survey. In fact, she talked to a newspaper about the callous way she was treated, creating a public-relations problem for the hospital.

Sources for both stories Vovici eBook, Survey Software Success

I still think it is important to know what our customers think, however, in an effort to attain this information it’s best not to give them reason to think any less of us than they did before they were presented with our survey!

Instinctively, you may be thinking, “Wait a minute. I don’t own a magazine, so why would I be interested in Publications Mail?” Well, read on if you want to learn about one of the best “unsung” deals around”. And, a deal that could put a lot of money back into your wallet.

Wisely, those that use Canada Post’s Addressed Admail product, often fold mailing pieces to ensure that they are within the Short/Long size category, as it saves them about $0.14 per piece on postage, as compared to mailing in the Oversize category. Depending on the weight of the piece and what is being mailed, that may make perfect sense.

However, if you are mailing (or considering mailing) something that is a littler larger that contains a reasonable amount objective editorial, and also showcases your products and services, Publications Mail could be an excellent option for you. In Canada, Publications Mail consists of Magazines, Newspapers and Newsletters and the definition from the Canada Post website is as follows:

“What is Publications Mail service?

To qualify as Publications Mail™, ALL of the following requirements must be met. Your publication needs to:

• Be in the format of a newspaper, magazine (including magalogues) or newsletter
• Consist of a single publication or a bundle of publications destined to a single address
• Be addressed to a subscriber, non-subscriber or news dealer
• Get published with a regular frequency and at least twice a year
• Contain news and information intended for public dissemination. It must not contain confidential or proprietary information
• Contain a maximum of 70% advertising content in more than half of the issues we deliver in a 12-month period
• Be deposited in Canada and addressed to Canadian addresses.”

So, what are the price advantages? Well, first of all the base weight allowance for LCP presorted Publications Mail is 200 grams as compared to the 50 gram based weight allowance for LCP presorted Addressed Admail. The base weight allowance is the maximum that a piece can weigh before additional weight charges are applied. Secondly, the minimum number of pieces to make a presort bundle is only 6 pieces with Publications Mail, as compared to 8 pieces for Addressed Admail. Lower level bundles (e.g. those going to a particular letter carrier or station) get better pricing. As a quick comparison, an Oversize Addressed Admail piece weighing 200 grams would be subject to additional weight charges of $0.39, on top of a base cost of roughly $0.55, for a total of $0.94 per piece. However, depending on the sort and geographic densities, a Publications Mail piece at 200 grams would likely cost around $0.55 per piece, total. That’s quite a difference.

I would also like to draw your attention to the term “magalogue” that is included in the Canada Post description, above. I’m sure that you have already guessed, but it is new phrase that describes the combination of a magazine and a catalogue. Basically it would adhere to all of the requirements above, featuring objective editorial as well as products for sale.

Apart from the price advantages, when you have your own publication you have a wonderful opportunity to showcase your industry knowledge through the articles that you write. This is not terribly different than blogging. However, with a publication you can decide to whom it should be mailed, unlike a blog where people must find it pretty much on their own.

This all sounds very good and, yes, it can be a great deal. However, before jumping in with both feet, please be aware that in order to mail an item as Publications Mail, it must first be submitted to Canada Post for approval. Further, you should be careful on the content, ensuring that editorial is not simply advertorial. We have helped many clients, by reviewing proposed publications prior to submission to Canada Post for a ruling and would be pleased to help any of our blog readers in this area.

I can tell you that it is not always easy to explain how these technologies and products can be used. So as a believer in direct marketing and guided somewhat by the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”, at Highland Marketing we frequently send out our own direct marketing pieces to showcase some of these new and exciting opportunities.

Through our own direct marketing programs we are able to:

• show clients what they can do
• show clients that we believe in our own service offerings
• enrich client relationships
• foster new relationships
• augment sales

By “walking the talk” we often become much closer to our clients and we can discuss their DM challenges as if they were our own. This allows us to not just care, but to take care of our customers.

Just like you, we have the same challenges when it comes to sourcing target groups. For our purposes we have chosen to:

• analyze our current clients in an effort to find similar prospects
• develop conceptual “take to market” ideas within specific industries

In terms of the latter, we often identify a concept and then work the client’s marketing team or agency to round it out. When we combine our technical skills (our main backgrounds) with our in-depth knowledge of Canada Post products and what we have learned from some great marketing gurus since 1993, we are able to bring a lot to the table.

Looking at our objectives from a sales perspective, we hope to be successful in each of the following areas:

• Acquisition
  • new customers
  • current customers, new opportunities
• Retention
  • as Highland Marketing customers
  • as marketers that continue to use direct marketing

With new customers, we often have to sell the value of direct marketing services and then sell ourselves as the vendor of choice to provide the service. With current customers we are often able to present new direct marketing techniques and/or enjoy opportunities by cross selling within the current customer base.

Ongoing communication lets clients know that we continue to look for new ways to help them be effective with their DM programs. We have said many times that “It is not our position to tell clients what to do, but what they might consider.”

There are many different advertising media and all of these compete strongly for your marketing dollars. Each of these has its own benefits and we recognize this. However, as strong believers in direct marketing, we have always promoted the physical and tangible qualities of direct mail. It can be highly targeted; it is portable and can be read anywhere. Of course, this is recognized by most businesses and direct mail remains one of the favourite choices for advertising.

There is no doubt that we have seen some huge changes in many facets of direct marketing and this shifting landscape has required:

• explaining how DM markets have changed
• demonstrating why direct mail remains viable
• offering innovative suggestions to enhance success and enrich client relations

What are some of the things we have done to demonstrate different mailing options? Well, these include:

• Newsletters
• Our own Highland Marketer magazine – 4 issues, one personalized with variable text
• Authors of the Gotcha Gang articles
• Roundcards, oval cards
• Die cut postcards – addressed & unaddressed
• Message in a bottle
• Lumpy mail campaign

Like many other advertisers, we like to mix our media as well. You are currently reading this as a blog post. However, we might also consider this as a feature article in a newsletter. Here are some of the other things we do to complement our overall marketing:

• Comprehensive web site:
  • services
  • knowledge base
• Blog
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

We also create learning opportunities for our clients through a variety of professionally written articles and as well as seminars, most of which we host free of charge. The following is a highlight of activity in these areas:

• Over 60 strategic articles posted to our blog
• Authored Database and Address Accuracy Primer
• Multiple Free How-To downloads posted to our web site
• Free seminars:
  • Direct Mail: Why It works and How to Use it
  • Fundamentals of Direct Marketing
  • Machineable Presort

This seems like a lot of “stuff” and, indeed it is, and you may be wondering if it has worked for us. Well, I believe that it has in that we have enjoyed both:

• quality, incremental business
• ongoing relationships with many wonderful clients

I think that these are goals that most of us are trying to achieve and we are delighted that direct marketing has played a vital role in this. From this it is safe to say that we are pleased to walk the talk!

1. Varying Lengths

One of the great strengths of variable printing is the ability to actually address the recipient by name. We’ve been doing the most basic version of this for years, creating personalized letters by inserting names (and other data) into the salutation line and even the body of the letter itself.

With the emergence of variable print as an increasingly affordable option, we are seeing more and more people using this same concept in other types of direct marketing, such as postcards. The cards can be personalized right on the press, with varying degrees of graphical richness, depending on the technologies that are used.

For many, it can seem like a marketer’s dream, but this kind of varying copy can present some unique challenges for copywriters.

The names Ed and Christopher have considerably different lengths. These varying lengths can, in turn, have a dramatic effect on the length of a line or paragraph of text in a direct marketing piece. This becomes even more relevant if personalizing with company names. For instance, IBM is much shorter than something like The Canadian Agricultural Marketing Association.

As such, when creating copy for a highly personalized direct mail piece, the copywriter should take these variations into account and consider the impact that they might have on the flow of the text. If you already have a data set, you might consider determining the longest and shortest values for a given field, and using these to do some mockups.

2. Varying Information

Variable print can potentially be the salvation of writers who struggle with crafting copy for a mixed market. Often, you might want to tweak a phrase here, a word there, or even a statistic, based on the profile of the recipient. With traditional offset printing, the only way to do this has been to run multiple versions of the card, address them separately and then merge them all back together into a single mailing.

Variable print changes all of that. It allows us to actually vary certain portions of our copy based on some predetermined condition. For example, in one of our recent mailings to some of our own prospects, we varied a bit of information based on whether the prospect would be marketing to businesses or to consumers. In so doing, we were actively tailoring our copy to the known interests of the recipient.

Marketing this way allows for more flexibility and freedom for the copy writer. It also requires greater responsibility. You need to document all of your variations and test them all to make sure that they flow properly. This is especially true if you plan to be using multiple substitutions, based on different criteria. Make sure that you do a detailed review of every possible combination, and that they all flow properly.

The last thing you want is for two of the substitutions to not work together (thematically, contextually or grammatically), or to simply render the copy unreadable.

For example, suppose that we are a catering company that specializes in gourmet pizzas, and want to target our list of previous clients, personalizing the piece by addressing what the recipient last ordered and the type of event it was. However, in addition to pizzas, the company also prepares other types of foods, such as incredible platters of sandwiches. With all this in mind, the following “variable” paragraph demonstrates some of the issues that can arise:

We hope you enjoyed our gourmet sandwiches! We just wanted to let you know that we’ve tweaked it’s recipe. Now, it’s better than ever – so we hope you’ll try it again at your next company event! We’re sure it will be a slice!

The “substitutions” are highlighted in bold, and the problems are in red. First, you’ll notice that the variable product is “gourmet sandwiches”. However, the generic parts of the paragraph were written primarily under the assumption that the product would be a single type of pizza. Thus, there is a grammatical disconnect between the plural sandwiches and the singular “it” that is used through the reset of the paragraph. Also, the closing sentence uses the term “slice” as playful pun, again based on the assumption of pizza. Because we’re talking about sandwiches here, the pun loses its context and falls flat.

3. Varying Headlines

Variable print can also change the way copywriters approach headlines. Rather than trying to develop the one headline that will have the most appeal across the entire group of recipients, you can actually develop a series of headlines, each targeted towards a different segment of your list.

This is also something that we did on our recent mailing. We started by analyzing the database to determine the key market sectors on the list. With this information in hand, we then turned to the task of crafting a unique headline for each target group. The writing process was extensive to say the least, and involved much experimenting and re-writing.

We also knew that we had to keep the headline to a single line of text on the postcard, so a good part of the writing process actually involved checking line lengths against each other to make sure that everything fit within the same basic range.

Altogether, it was a lot of work, but in the end it was worth it. We had an entire mailing of highly targeted postcards, all run on a single print job and prepared from a single mailing stream.

Conclusion

These are only three examples, but I think that they clearly demonstrate how the role of the copy writer is likely to change right along with the evolving variable print technologies.

Of course, this does not effect or change the basic concepts of writing copy for direct mail. It still needs to be able to maintain attention, to engage the reader, and ultimately motivate them toward some desired action. What variable print does do, however, is provide the copywriter (and the rest of the marketing team) with the tools to compose highly targeted copy to help build more leads and ultimately drive sales.