For short runs of 5000 or under our digital press makes quick work of post cards by printing and address…all on one pass of the press. If the press is not book too heavily, they can print and mail in one day. Now that is printing your way. Want a real tour? Call me at 865 584-2265 Phyllis Burns
That is how I described Burns Mailing & Printing, Inc. to a local magazine today. I for one, love going to boutique clothing stores, coffee shops, and especially bakeries. These boutiques specialize in giving specialized customer services that you don’t find with large big box stores. They give you a unique experience and I think that is what we do best at Burns Mailing & Printing, Inc. For our customers, we assist them with art files, design (if needed), free consultation and basically guide them from concept to the mail box. Since we offer printing (both digital and offset) and we are a direct mailing company their project moves from one knowledgeable department to the next and finally to the United States Post Office.
Seeing is believing, call me to schedule a tour of our company and see for your self what a boutique mailer and printer is all about. Phyllis Burns 865 584-2265.
I think that strange things must happen when there is a solar eclipse, because as I sit here writing this blog, I am alone at my business. It seems that the solar eclipse has made all of my employees leave for the day. I sure hope that they come back tomorrow and don’t just disappear forever. Who knows for sure. Also another strange event is that there was hardly anyone at Wright’s Cafeteria today. Now that is strange. It will be interesting to see the news reports tonight about all the things happening in different cities. I had originally planned to go to Sweetwater until I heard about all the predictions about how many other people would be there. I have an employee who is involved in a project with NASA through Pellissippi State to launch a balloon to gather data. She is doing that in South Carolina. As for me I will be watching on top of Overlook Drive, here in our Industrial Park. Happy eclipse day.
The new members of the Business Advisory Council, from left: Deputy to the Mayor Christi Branscom; Wade Esau; Mackey Brownlee; Lisa Cyr; Deidra Harper; Josh Smith; Mayor Madeline Rogero; Mary Ann Stackhouse; Tommy Smith; Phyllis Burns; Jody Collins; Business Liaison Patricia Robledo; Charles Houston; Raul Rangel; and Kira Frazier-Jones.
Deidra Harper, co-owner of B&B Lawn Services, hails from a family of business self-starters and entrepreneurs. So she was a natural fit to be appointed by Mayor Madeline Rogero to her Business Advisory Council.
“It’s exciting to see how the City and community can work together,” she said Thursday morning, as the new BAC members met for the first time with the Mayor, Deputy to the Mayor Christi Branscom and Business Liaison Patricia Robledo.
Mayor Rogero has appointed 12 new members of her Business Advisory Council, and those appointees reflect the wide diversity of entrepreneurs, professionals, retailers and service providers that make up Knoxville’s business community.
The members of the BAC serve in an advisory and partnership capacity to promote regular and open communication between City government and businesses. The council gives advice to the Office of Business Support, and it serves as a sounding board for evaluating proposals aimed at making it easier to do business in the city of Knoxville.
That’s appealing to Josh Smith of Master Service Companies LLC, who manages more than 100 employees.
“We see the different challenges,” he said. “Serving on this committee excites me. A good leader wants to put something like this together. … It’s an opportunity to listen and see opportunities to streamline the bureaucracy.”
There’s heavy private investment and energized entrepreneurship happening throughout Knoxville, leveraged in part by the City’s investments in public infrastructure. And while the city is a good place to start and grow businesses, City government is always looking for ways to help make running or expanding a business less complicated and time-consuming.
“When I was running for Mayor, one of things I kept hearing from the business community was that it was difficult to do business with the City,” Rogero said. “So one of the first things I did was create the Office of Business Support.”
Numerous common-sense upgrades have been put in place: For example, online options have been expanded, giving people a choice if they prefer not to make trips to City offices.
Another example: Since 2014, the City’s Plans Review and Inspections Department has been scheduling free, voluntary and informal monthly meetings with property owners, developers, architects, contractors and engineers who want to ask questions and iron out details about their property-improvement projects. It’s intended to be convenient one-stop shopping for anyone with questions about a building project.
Jorge Sanabria of Expoquip finished his BAC term Thursday. He encouraged his successors on the council to not miss a single meeting, because the discussions are so helpful and important.
“Serving was an incredible experience for me,” Sanabria said. “I learned a great deal about our city. I loved Knoxville before, but I love it even more now. We’ve got such a bright future.”
According to the research done by The Direct Marketing Association that direct mail achieves a 3.7% response rate with a house list and a 1% response rate with an acquisition list. They report that mobile, paid search, social media, email, and internet display combines (yes combined) only achieve a .62% response rate.
The following is is some of the formats that perform the best for direct mail. According to the DMA’s study these formats performed the best;
Oversized envelopes response rate is 5.0% (higher postage)
Post Cards have a 4.25% response rate. (post cards up to 6×11 have a lower postage rate)
Catalogs have a 3.9 % response rate
Letter sized envelopes have a 3.5% response rate
Don’t know where to start? Call me Phyllis Burns at 865 584-2265 or email me at phyllis@burnsmp.com. We start with concept and deliver to the mail box. We have an expect team to lead you in every aspect of direct mail.
Phyllis Robinette Burns
Aug. 16, 2017
NEW MEMBERS OF BUSINESS ADVISORY COUNCIL APPOINTED
The new 12-member Business Advisory Council, appointed by Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero, reflects a broad range of local businesses and owners. The Mayor’s appointments were unanimously supported by City Council at its meeting Tuesday night.
Members of the Business Advisory Council, or BAC, serve in an advisory and partnership capacity to promote regular and open communication between City government and businesses. The council gives advice to the Office of Business Support; brings issues and concerns related to doing business in Knoxville to the attention of the City administration; proposes responses and solutions to address these concerns; and provides feedback on City initiatives and proposals affecting business.
“This is a key advisory panel, so it’s crucially important that its members represent the wide diversity of entrepreneurs, professionals, retailers and service providers that make up Knoxville’s business community,” said Patricia Robledo, the City’s Business Liaison.
“These are business leaders who have volunteered to serve as a sounding board. We’ll be asking them how issues or policies affect local small businesses. But it’s very much a two-way street. They’ll have great ideas that they’ll be sharing to help make Knoxville even more business friendly.”
The newly appointed members (and their businesses) are:
n Mackey Brownlee, Brownlee Realty;
n Phyllis Burns, Burns Mailing & Printing;
n Jody Collins, Feral Giant;
n Lisa Cyr, Nothing Too Fancy;
n Wade Esau, Elo Touch Solutions;
n Deidra Harper, B&B Lawn Services;
n Charles Houston, CA Inc.;
n Raul Rangel, Work Now Inc.;
n Josh Smith, Master Dry;
n Tommy Smith; Ackermann PR;
n Kira Frazier-Jones, KIRA/The Spa Suites; and
n Mary Ann Stackhouse, Lewis King PC.
The new BAC members will serve two-year terms through summer 2019. The BAC meets every other month, beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 17, in Room 549 in the City County Building.
Paige M. Travis
Public Information Specialist
City of Knoxville Communications Dept
Office of Mayor Madeline Rogero
I have been so pleased to work with Burns Mailing & Printing! Their customer service is attentive with a small community feel. They are knowledgeable and helpful in every phase of the process! I walked into this process blind, but from the first design phase, to the final mail-outs, each member carried me through their area of expertise, and clearly explained and coached me through what I needed to know. Their collaborative efforts produced a beautiful brochure advertising our company’s coming events. Thank you, Phyllis, for assembling such a great team to work with! You made a dreaded process a joy!
Andrea Darden
Co-ordinator for TN Justice Programs
Since Burns Mailing & Printing, Inc. operates three businesses in one, our graphic designers wear many hats. Yes, they are very creative and design, logos, brochures, catalogs, calendars, presentation folders and much more, but they also are well versed in United States Postal specifications, and the many nuances of mailing. They must insure that the mailing panel meets postal specifications for post cards, catalogs and flyers. The mailing panel must be correct or it can cost the customer more money in postage or the direct mail piece may not be mailable at all. If we are just mailing for a customer, we like to check the mailing panel before it is printed to insure that the customer gets the lowest postage possible.
Another thing that most people don’t know is that our design department actually programs several pieces of equipment that we use for production. The first piece of equipment is our digital press. The files are sent to the digital press ready to print from the graphics department. For variable data that is printing at the same time as the direct mail piece, the mailing list is sent to graphics and they run the file through software called Print Shop Mail. This allows the digital press to print, front and back and address for mailing…all on one pass of the digital press. Cool huh? The second piece of equipment that they program is our computer to plate system. The files are send to the plate maker and our production team pulls up the file and makes the plates that go on to our offset presses. The computer to plate system has enabled us to make plates in 10 minutes and this is a great improvement over 1 1/2 hours before we had the computer to plate system. The third piece of equipment is our paper cutter. The jobs go through our plant by job ticket numbers. The bindery simply pulls up the job ticket number and the paper cutter is programmed for each particular job.
Want to try our one-stop convenience for graphic design, printing (digital and offset) and our direct mail services? Call me at 865 584-2265 or email me at phyllis@burnsmp.com.
Direct mail is still the most trusted form of contacting people. Mail can be read at their convenience and saved for a later date, if it is something of interest to the recipient. It is not as intrusive as emails and does not go into spam filters. Everyone loves getting mail, make your next contract with your clients, customers and donors by direct mail.
At Burns Mailing & Printing Inc., our experienced staff can take your project from the concept to the mailbox. Call me at 865 584-2265 or email me at phyllis@burnsmp.com.
What is a good mailing list and how do you get one? The best mailing list is your own. It is people who have a known association with your organization or business. If you want to add more names or know how many people are within your desired demographics in a certain area, we can do a list count for FREE and tell you how many people are out there. You might want to do a radius count of your address, for instance one mile, two miles etc. We recently had a deli shop that had remodeled their shop and wanted people within a 5 mile radius to visit their shop. We did a radius count using their demographics and came up with the number of households that they needed. An of course, since we are graphic designers, printers (both digital and offset) and are direct mail company, we were able to handle all of it right here, all under one roof. It truly is a big roof!
We are also able to combine the customers list with a list that they have purchased. To make sure that we are not purchasing names that they already have, we have the list company do a suppression and they do not send any names that our customer already has on their company list.
Before any mailing, we provide a FREE NCOAlink update to take out any undeliverable names. In most cases we can provide forwarding addresses if the person has moved. We then send our customer a list of the undeliverable addresses so that they can correct their own list. If they do not make the changes when they receive them from us, then on the next mailing they might have dropped off the National Change of Address database that the USPS maintains and the address may be lost to them. It is important to do the list clean up and list hygiene BEFORE printing so that you don’t print to many or too few of your mailer. After list clean up, we can give you a project price to the penny before you commit to the project. We don’t like surprises and we assume that our customers don’t like surprises when it comes to pricing.
If all of this seems complicated, no worries, just call or email me and we will walk you through the entire mailing process. phyllis@burnsmp.com or call 865 584-2265.
We are a printer who knows mailing and a mailer who knows printing.