As a marketer, you’ve probably experienced the evasive attitudes customers and prospects have to the traditional sales pitch. Once they are aware they have become a target, they become disengaged and, even worse, no longer interested in what your company has to offer. Connecting with customers and prospects on a more personal and organic level will humanize your brand. Your marketing will make your brand more approachable and sell your brand in a way that showcases your company’s personality, it’s people, it’s value, and ideas.

7 Steps for Creating Branded Content for Your Company Culture is a post from: Ritters Communication

Direct mail is a great way to reach your customers and prospects, but often times what your customer receives is far from the first impression you want to make. Are bent corners, smudges and tears afflicting your direct mail? Make your direct mail more resilient with these five tips.

1. 1. Choose a Heavier Stock. As most marketers know, presentation matters. One of the biggest contributing factors with a direct mail piece is the very paper it’s printed on. Choosing a thin paper can wreak havoc on the critical first impression. Choose a paper stock that can withstand the multiple exchanges of hands without suffering the wear and tear. Recommended paper weight for direct mail postcards would the equivalent of 100# cover weight or 10 pt. card stock, as a minimum weight. Ideally, we would suggest 12 pt. or heavier.
2. 2. Add a UV Coating. Ultra Violet Coating is a glossy coating applied to the surface of a printed piece and cured with a special machine using ultra violet light. UV Coating is environmentally friendly, enhances the mail piece appearance and, most importantly, adds a good layer of abrasion resistance. The coating resists smudging and marking that often comes with the sorting and delivery of mail.
3. 3. Lamination, Lamination, Lamination. An alternative way to strengthen your direct mail piece is through lamination. By laminating the piece, you can minimize the smudging and marking that even a good coating may not withstand. Looking to save a little but keep your direct mail strong? Opt for a thinner stock paper and laminate only the messaging side of our direct mail piece, leaving the address side un-laminated. This will allow you to take advantage of variable print on the address side while keeping your messaging looking clean and crisp.
4. 4. Shine Through with Clear Envelopes. We’re sure you’ve seen them… a creative direct mail piece enclosed in a see-through envelope. Choosing to send your direct mail in one of these envelopes is a great way to keep the visual impact of your piece without sacrificing anything on delivery. The envelope protects your piece from the smudging and marking, leaving your direct mail to make the biggest impact possible.
5. 5. Design a Custom Envelope. Envelopes have been encasing important messages and documents since the Babylonian era in 2,000 BC. The envelope, and often time understated component of mailing, is the first (and sometimes the last) thing that your consumer will see. The USPS calls the time spent sorting, organizing and reading the mail “The Mail Moment”. This is the time when consumers bring in their mail and discover what it has to offer. This is the time your envelope needs to stand out. Create a custom envelope that separates your direct mail piece from the pack. Use a design that is eye-catching and speaks to your brand. Remember, if you can’t get them to open the envelope, your creative mail piece or collateral inside will never be noticed or read.

Are you looking to get started with your next direct mail marketing campaign? Ritter’s Communications can help. Call us today and we’ll walk you through creating your next campaign using our Ritter’s Communications Direct Marketing Playbook.

Is Your Direct Mail Taking a Beating? is a post from: Ritters Communication

One of the changes involves a “barcode clear zone” at the bottom right of each mail piece.  The execution of this regulation has been irregular, but regardless of the varying implementation, it will be mandatory soon.

What does this mean to you?

In order to meet the requirements, the mail piece must contain a blank white rectangular box that is .625” tall X 4.75” wide and starts from the lower right corner. This enables the post office to spray barcodes when necessary, allowing for faster processing and delivery of the mail.

 What if you do not have a barcode clear zone?

Pieces that contain a delivery point barcode (verified postal address) will not incur any penalties. However, a non-barcoded or non-verified address that does not have the requisite space will change to a “non-machinable” mail classification. This can result in a significant postage increase, as well as delays in delivery.

Upcoming Changes to Direct Mail is a post from: Ritters Communication

Campaign Plan

Using the checklist, identify the key elements of your campaign that you will utilize. Moving across the playbook to the right, fill in the columns with detailed notes that support each key element. Here’s where you can refine your ideas and add details to help build out the structure of each element.

Visualize Your Campaign

Use the Visualize Your Campaign area to make preliminary notes about your direct mail campaign. Sketch out your design ideas, create a Mind Map, identify your marketing components, or use the area to draft your creative brief. It’s a free-form area designed to help you get the creative juices flowing.

Map the Campaign Process

Now that you’ve identified and developed your key elements, use this designated area on the back to map your campaign process. Include a process flow chart to display how your campaign will be executed.

Yes, please send me a Direct Marketing Playbook:

Ritter’s Communications’ Direct Marketing Playbook is a post from: Ritters Communication

“The 2013 Mailing Services Promotions Calendar also will give commercial mailers more time to plan their campaigns so that they can take full advantage of both postage savings and marketing opportunities to engage their customers with targeted, tangible and personal communications.” said Gary Reblin, vice president, Domestic Products, USPS.

They are unveiling six different promotions all with unique service offerings and discount rates.

Mobile Coupon/Click-to-Call – Registration for this promotion began on January 15, 2013. The promotion period will be from March 1 - April 30, 2013. The Mobile Coupon/Click-to-Call promotion customers will receive a 2% upfront postage discount by incorporating mobile technology with standard mail. Eligible mail classes for this promotion are Standard Mail, Nonprofit Standard Mail, and First-Class Mail letters, flats, and cards (presort and automation).

Earned Value Reply Mail – Eligible mail classes for this promotion include Business Reply Mail and Courtesy Reply Mail. With the use of Earned Value Reply Mail promotion, clients who include a First-Class Business/Courtesy Reply envelope will receive two cents postage credit for each piece that is returned and scanned through USPS systems. Registration for this promotion began on January 1, 2013. The promotion period will be from April 1 – June 30, 2013.

Emerging Technologies – Registration for this promotion begins on June 15, 2013. The promotion period will be from August 1- September 30, 2013. The Emerging Technologies promotion customers will receive a 2% discount for utilizing current emerging technologies into their mail pieces; some of these new technologies include near-field communication, augmented reality and mobile-enabled authentication technologies. Eligible mail classes for this promotion: Standard Mail letters and flats, Nonprofit Standard Mail letters and flats, First-Class Mail, presort and automation letters, cards and flats.

Picture Permit – Eligible mail classes for this promotion are Standard Mail letters and cards. First-Class Mail presort and automation letters and cards, *Full-Service Intelligent Mail® barcode (IMB) is required. The Picture Permit promotion is designed to encourage the use of the Picture Permit imprint indicia. The fee for the Picture Permit indicia will be waived for mailing First-Class as well as Standard mail letters and cards. Registration for this promotion begins June 15, 2013. The promotion period will be from August 1- September 30, 2013.

Product Samples – Registration for this promotion begins on May 1, 2013. The promotion period will be from August 1- September 30, 2013. The Product Samples promotion is designed to highlight the new proposed “Simple Samples” pricing for USPS Standard mail. Customers sending product samples via mail will receive a 5% upfront postage discount. Eligible mail classes for this promotion: Standard Mail Regular and Non Profit Marketing parcels.

Mobile Buy-it-Now – Eligible mail classes for this promotion include Standard Mail letters and flats, Nonprofit Standard Mail letters and flats, First-Class Mail presort and automation letters, cards and flats. With the Mobile Buy-it-Now promotion, customers will receive a 2% upfront discount on postage for mobile customer engagement that directly leads the mail recipient to a mobile optimized webpages where they can complete financial transactions. Registration for this promotion begins September 15, 2013. The promotion period will be from November 1- December 31, 2013.

2013 USPS Promotions is a post from: Ritters Communication

Download the Market Your Big Event Poster

Events are powerful! They provide your organization with an opportunity to create a lasting impression with clients and prospects by allowing people to experience and interact with your organization. Events position your organization in the mind of the customer and are the strongest means of communicating and interacting with your customer. Let’s take a look at some of the ways your organization can benefit from hosting an event.

• Brand Awareness- Like any marketing activity, one of the strongest benefits of hosting an event is the building of your organization’s brand. Events have a strong impact on brand awareness as they allow your organization to express its identity first hand. This is the perfect opportunity to engage all of the senses of your clients and prospects, associating your brand with specific ideas and feelings your organization wants to be associated with.
• Lead Generation- Events are the perfect opportunity to increase your customer base. They not only provide the perfect opportunity to position your organization in its target market, but you also have the ability to interact with that target market to provide a memorable and powerful first impression.
• Customer Engagement- The strongest method of building brand loyalty is through customer engagement. Positive personal interaction with existing customers provides an organization with the opportunity to build the business relationship and to increase ROI per customer, capitalizing on repeat sales. Events are the perfect way to share new ideas, products and solutions.
• Educate Your Customers and Prospects- Many people attend events for educational purposes. The content shared with attendees is critical and provides the perfect opportunity to position your organization as a valuable resource. It is critical to provide meaningful information that the audience will value and remember as it establishes a strong connection between your brand and prospective buyers.

Looking for the right opportunity to interact with your customers in 2013? Ritter’s Communications can help! Download or request a copy of our Market Your Big Event poster to learn more about how Ritter’s Communications can help market your event through Direct Mail!

Click here to request a copy of the Ritter’s Communications Market Your Big Event Poster. Please include your name, address, city, state, zip, company name and phone number.

4 Ways Events Can Benefit Your Organization is a post from: Ritters Communication

Intelligent Mail® Barcodes (IMb), also known as the One Code Solution and the 4-State Customer Barcode, is a 65-bar code use by the United States Postal Service (USPS) for domestic mail delivery. The barcode is designed to offer greater information and functionality than its predecessors POSTNET and PLANET by incorporating the routing ZIP code and tracking information into a single barcode.

So how can the barcode benefit marketers?

One of the greatest benefits Intelligent Mail Barcodes provides to marketers is the tracking insight it brings to direct mail campaigns. Using this specially designed barcode, marketers will be able to understand where their direct mail pieces are in the mail stream so that they can provide accurate in-home timing updates to internal and executive teams. By providing these updates, marketers will be able to more accurately gauge response times and prepare call centers and inbound sales staff in advance.

Another benefit is the ability to enable trigger-based marketing as part of your response campaigns. Through the IMb scan, marketers will be able to determine when their direct mail piece is in-home, allowing them to integrate a trigger-based marketing program that accurately deploy a second direct mail piece or follow-up email coinciding or following the arrival of the first touch point. Prior to the Intelligent Mail Barcode, marketers depended on methodology and guesswork to determine when their first touch point would arrive in-home and would then send their second touch point hoping that it arrived to the recipient as was intended. With the Intelligent Mail Barcode, that guesswork is removed and now your campaigns will deploy with more accuracy.

The Intelligent Mail Barcode is an inexpensive and effective way for organizations of all sizes to increase the performance of their direct mail marketing efforts.

Intelligent Mail Barcodes is a post from: Ritters Communication

Build a Stronger Direct Mail Campaign Checklist is a post from: Ritters Communication

Let’s look at some of the best practices when integrating your online marketing efforts with direct mail to boost your marketing ROI.

• Consistent Branding to Get Noticed: Your online and offline marketing should have consistent look and feel. Use the same logo on your website that you use in your print materials. Stick with a color palette that compliments your brand and carry those same colors from your print materials to your online website design. Follow your brand guidelines when choosing your colors and imagery.
• Clear Messaging: The slogans and catchphrases associated with your brand should be carried throughout all of your marketing activities. Messages that you deliver online should be seen in offline activities and vice versa. Messaging that is clear and concise will help people to remember your brand.
• Include Your Web Address and Social Icons: One of the key ways to help your customers find you online is to include your web address and show the icons of the social media platforms you engage in. Every printed piece should include these two crucial elements.
• Capitalize on Keywords: Your offline efforts can positively impact your online SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) efforts. Incorporating the keywords that you are optimizing for on your website in your printed direct mail pieces will reinforce word associations for higher organic search results.
• Create Custom Landing Pages: Create a special landing page that customers can visit that will increase their user experience within a particular campaign. These landing pages are specifically designed to contain only the information appearing on the direct mail piece the customer received. This is a perfect opportunity to incorporate PURLs (personalized URLs) into the marketing mix.

3 Elements to Boost Your Online Appeal

QR Codes are everywhere, donning the aisles at supermarkets or the tags on your latest plant purchase at your local home improvement store. QR codes are designed to take your reader from the print material to an online, and usually interactive, experience that relates to the message they are reading. By scanning the two-dimensional code with a smart phone or tablet, the reader will be able to connect to your branded content quickly and easily.

QR codes are free to make and easy to integrate into your direct mail marketing campaign. There are many different code creators out there and, if you’re looking for a little more creative code liberty, there are even code creators that allow you to download eps files. QR codes come in many different colors and sizes. You can coordinate the codes look and feel to your current campaign easily.

Since QR codes are built using the hyperlink of your choice, you can track the success (scans) of your codes using any web analytics tool, such as Google Analytics.

Remember, the shorter the URL, the easier it is to customize your QR code. If you have a long url, try using a URL shortener like Bitly (www.bit.ly) or Google URL Shortener (www.goo.gl) to shorten it before creating your QR code.

Here are some great free QR code creators online:

• QR Code Generator by Peter Minne (http://qrcode.littleidiot.be/)
• QR Code Generator by Delivr (http://delivr.com/QR-Code-Generator)
• QR Code Generator by QRstuff.com (http://www.qrstuff.com/)

Personalized URLs (PURLs) are a creative way to grab your reader’s attention. A personalized URL is a web address that contains a custom extension, such as the recipient’s name. Some benefits of using personalized URLs in your direct mail campaign include:

• Improved campaign tracking. Easily track URL opens and visits.
• Makes direct mail interactive. Building customized applications such as videos, podcasts and mini-sites enhances the value of your brand.
• Trigger-based marketing. Knowing exactly when your URL was visited by the recipient allows you to follow up with branded content immediately and accurately without any guesswork.
• Combine Variable Data Print with PURLs. Personalized marketing makes your direct mail piece stand out. Use the recipients name in the direct mail piece and combine it with a personalized callout on the mini-site or web destination of your PURL.

Social Media is one of the most popular methods to integrate traditional and online marketing. Interact with your direct mail recipients by encouraging them to LIKE you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn and subscribe to your YouTube channel. Other fun social networking mediums to use as marketing tools are Pinterest (create pin boards with images that represent your products or services), SlideShare (share presentations with clients and prospects), Google+ (be registered as a blogger and benefit from your content marketing in search engines), and FourSquare (customers can check into your business to receive discounts and exclusive offers). Incorporating a unique element in your direct mail piece that only recipients of the direct mail will have access to through your social networks creates exclusivity and drives engagement.

Check out this great infographic on how Direct Mail and social media work hand-in-hand to drive positive response rates.

Direct Mail 2.0 – From Online to Offline is a post from: Ritters Communication

Let’s take a look at what makes direct mail powerful:

• key design pieces you need to incorporate
• best ways to test your campaign
• ways you can measure results

Just how powerful is direct mail? According to PrintIsBig.com, direct U.S. advertisers spend $167 per person on direct mail to earn $2,095 worth of goods. That’s a 1,300% return on investment! Pretty good, right? If that statistic alone doesn’t convince you, take a look around your office. Have you received a creative direct mail piece lately that has found a permanent spot on your desk or pin board? Direct mail has one of the longest shelf lives of all your marketing efforts, making it an invaluable component in your marketing strategy.

Let’s begin by defining direct mail marketing. Direct mail marketing is defined as communication about a particular product or service sent through a designated media (direct mail) to generate a desired response (an inquiry for more information, a sale, an order, etc.). An effective direct mail marketing campaign is designed to be both measurable and quantifiable.

The Power Behind Direct Mail Communication

Effective Communication with Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience and constructing a meaningful message for that audience is one of the critical components of any direct mail marketing campaign.  There are three key elements to keep in mind when writing the copy for your next direct mail campaign:

1. Be Personable: Regardless of the size of your target audience, your direct mail message has a greater chance of being read if it sounds and feels like a personal conversation. When writing your campaign message, your grammar should be relaxed and reader-friendly. Your goal is to create the feeling of person-to-person conversation through your direct mail piece.
2. It’s All About the Reader: Your direct mail message content should be more about the reader than your products or services. Your readers are more interested in what’s in it for them and the quicker you can convey that message, the more likely you will grab and keep their attention.
3. Benefits vs Features- Which is right for your audience?: You’re probably familiar with one of direct marketing’s oldest rules: emphasize the benefits over the features. While benefits are emotion-based, and tend to satisfy the emotional connection with your product or service, features are more intellectual. Your decision to focus on benefits or features largely depends on the type of audience you are appealing to.

For instance, a direct mail message to working adults about online banking would have greater impact if it focused on the benefits of the system, emphasizing the ease and flexibility it would bring to their personal banking experiences. In contrast, a direct mail message to a computer engineer about new operating systems would have greater impact if it focused on the features because computer engineers would be more likely to be concerned with product specifications.

Design to Be Noticed

5 Critical Design Elements

A good message means nothing when housed in a poor design. A typical direct mail recipient reads for four to five seconds before deciding whether to keep reading or to throw your marketing piece in the trash. With that in mind, let’s look at some design elements that, when used properly, will keep your readers attention.

1. Lead with a Strong Message
   Your direct mail piece needs to grab the reader’s attention immediately. To do this, you need to start with your strongest point. Ask a question, express understanding of the reader’s most pressing problem or concern, relay a fascinating fact or statistic, or share a special promotional offer. If a reader only reads your piece for four to five seconds, this is the line they should remember.
2. Guide the Eye
   A well-designed direct mail piece is easy for the reader to scan. There should be plenty of white space and structured so that the most important points stand out. Focal points of your design include headlines, subheads, capitalized words, bold type, and underlined words.
3. Be Compelling
   A direct mail piece without a call-to-action that motivates your reader, is like a cake without icing. The call-to-action needs to spark your reader to respond. Some call-to-actions offer discounts or a gift, others may offer improvements or trade secrets. Whatever your call-to-action may be, it needs to be compelling enough to convince your reader to follow through.
4. Use Friendly Font Types
   That super cool creative font may win you votes with your designer, but if your direct mail piece is hard to read, you’re missing the mark. Although the design of your direct mail piece is just as important as the message you are conveying, there is a fine line when using creative fonts. A good rule of thumb is to design your direct mail piece for easy reading and easy skimming.  Serif fonts are generally easier to read by most people with a 10 to 12 point font size.
5. Picture Perfect
   Depending on your audience, the amount of imagery you use in your direct mail piece may change. If you are targeting a younger audience, you may find that they respond to graphics that show people using the product or service to emphasize the outcome of the sale. The younger audiences typically prefer a good balance of brief simple copy with imagery. If you are targeting an older generation, you may find they respond better to your messaging when accompanied by graphics that mirror the target audience. Having a good balance of copy to imagery is essential in direct mail design.

Test, Test, Test
Methods to Testing the Effectiveness of Your Campaign 

How to do you know if one direct mail piece has a better response rate than another? You test. In order to gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns, you must perform tests that compare individual campaigns to one another. This helps you to determine whether or not it was the creative, the list, or the offer that affected response rates. Each direct mail campaign is different, so don’t assume something will work based on past performance. A minor change in your direct mail campaign can have a major impact on response rates.

Another rule to remember when testing your campaign with two different audiences, change only one component at a time. Keep your methodology scientific. This will help you to narrow down which changes affected your response rates. Some areas you could test on your direct mail piece include headlines, envelope teaser lines, minor copy changes, and the delivery method.

Track Your Campaigns

The only true way to know the success of your campaign is to track responses. Designated phone numbers, promotional codes, Personalized URLs, custom landing pages or microsites (track your online efforts with Google analytics), QR codes with custom links are all possible ways to track your campaigns. The key is to choose the method that is right for your campaign and create your process for tracking and monitoring before the campaign reaches your reader’s inbox.

The Power of Direct Mail Marketing is a post from: Ritters Communication