Value The Direct Mail Printer As A Marketing Consultant
This is an excerpt from USPS® Deliver® Magazine who kindly gave me permission to use in this blog.
“It’s likely you’re trying to produce more with less budget these days. So it’s tempting to think about cutting expenses by simply going with the lowest-cost print provider. But, in this competitive market, that could be a mistake.
Sure you might save a few bucks in print fees, but what you could lose is far more valuable. Today’s printers do much more than simply put ink to paper. They are marketing consultants who use their knowledge and experience in creating and mailing printed materials to help their clients get the most out of their campaigns.
Printers are on top of the latest mail printing trends and efficiencies, which uniquely qualifies them to point out costly mistakes. They also can manage or influence many campaign elements outside the printing realm to help you reach optimum ROI.
Printers are also at the forefront of new technologies that let your direct mail pieces target customers like never before. If you’re using variable data printing, for example, your printer can provide insights on which aspects of the piece should be personalized, as well as guidance on how to make your message relevant to your target.
They also sit on a gold mine of information about postal capabilities and service standards. Printers understand mail piece design characteristics, preparation requirements and economics so well they can often help you cut prices simply by combining projects, whether it’s through co-mailing, co-palletization or merging your mail with other customers’ products.
Your production staff needs to communicate your project goals and time frame to your print company at the concept and design stage, as it may be able to bring added expertise to the table – literally. Clifton, N.J., graphic communications company Sandy Alexander Inc. often invites its local USPS® representative to sit in on client meetings to help design the most compliant and cost-effecient mailers possible.
For maximum ROI, make sure your production folks choose printers that can achieve your strategic objectives by either improving the effectiveness of the mail piece or reducing the cost of creating and mailing it. The good ones will know enough about our business and your business to ask the right questions and make sure you ultimately get what you’re paying for.”
Article by Tom Foti – Manager for Marketing Mail at the United States Postal Service®
I gave a presentation at the Association of Fundraising Professionals today at lunch. This was one of the things that I encourage everyone to do is to sit down at the conception of the project with your print/mail company and plan the project to meet your objectives at the lowest possible cost. At Burns Mailing & Printing, Inc. consulting is FREE to our customers. We also offer FREE NCOAlink updates to our nonprofit customers who print and mail with Burns.
Yesterday I received a publication in the mail that did not have the addressing area at the top of the publication as specified in a directive that went into effect March 29, 2009. The USPS will no longer accept mail that does not meet the new specifications. (I addressed this in an earlier blog) so the publication had XXX everything out and put it in the correct addressing area. This made the publication look messy and the mailer of the publication look like they did not know their business. Why go through all of that when you have a wealth of knowledge available with a good printer/mailer?
I would not expect too much help from the USPS® in regards to representative sitting down to discuss your project. Unfortunately due to budget costs they are losing more and more of their knowledgeable staff. At our local Post Office we are losing the only Mail Piece Design Analyst. It seems there will only be one Mail Piece Design Analyst in the entire State of TN. My advice is find a quality mailer/printer and let them work out the details for you.
