If your mailing is fat, over-sized, or three-dimensional, it stands out. People want to pick it up and see what’s inside. Results of dimensional mailings can be spectacular. However, they also cost more to produce, assemble, and mail. Dimensional mailings work, but you want to be smart about using them. Let’s look at some techniques […] →Read more
Recently, IBM released a study titled “Redefining Markets: Insights from the C-Suite Study,” which surveyed over 700 CMOs from more than 50 countries. CMO’s number one priority, according to the study? Developing better customer experiences. Nearly two-thirds (63%) cited this as their top priority. When the researchers looked deeper into what made for a “better […] →Read more
In Part 1 of this series, I discussed the case for investing in designing direct marketing campaigns that are designed to deliver insights into our business, which can make our marketing process more effective and also provide valuable intelligence across other initiatives happening in the business. In Part 2 of the series I promised I […] →Read more
Buyer behavior is changing quite rapidly, and the evidence supports that research and buying are increasingly done online across a wide range of demographics. To collect and analyze these online interactions and behaviors requires a carefully planned process. When you are planning marketing campaigns, how intentional are you about campaign design and execution generating actionable […] →Read more
Have you noticed how everything is becoming “big”? In a recent commentary (1), Dr. Joe Webb remarked, “…big mail will require big data and big automation to balance increasing costs of compliance and postage.” Expiration of the exigent postage surcharge aside, I would say The Doctor’s comments are hard to deny. It occurs to me […] →Read more
This past week I had the opportunity to attend the 2016 National Postal Forum (NPF) in Nashville. Thinking of Nashville and its rich history in Country Music, I can’t help but think about the USPS and its history. Starting with the Pony Express, to rail car mail sorting, to barcode scanning technology; if you really […] →Read more
We all know that we live in an ever increasingly information based age. There is a mad rush in the business world to record as much data as possible in our businesses. This want and rush only grows as data recording technology expands from deliberate recording into the passive and the Internet of Things. Information […] →Read more
As goes the famous quote by character Obi Wan Kenobi in the 1977 movie Star Wars, “I felt a great disturbance in the force”, so it is in the Direct Marketing Production business these days. Impact is on the move and involved in a revolutionary shift in technology that is sure to be disruptive to […] →Read more
Wikipedia now defines “direct marketing” as, “Direct marketing is a form of advertising which allows businesses and nonprofit organizations to communicate directly to customers through a variety of media including cell phone text messaging, email, websites, online adverts, database marketing, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional letters and targeted television, newspaper and magazine advertisements as well as […] →Read more
Recently I wrote a post about dynamic documents. It really is amazing how dynamic a document can be in the technology age. Data, of course, is central to many of the tactics I discussed. As I wrote that post, it occurred to me that a discussion of dynamic documents would be incomplete without some mention […] →Read more