Yes, Google could simply send this report online via email – but even these internet giants know the value of holding something in one’s hand. The internet cannot replace the value of tactile connection.
Some ideas for personalized brochures for your business:

Financial Updates

Let your clients know how their portfolio is progressing. We’re sure you already have all the info in excel, leverage your data and create high-end personalized communications.

Retail View Books

If you have an eCommerce website, you may have many customers with full shopping carts or wish lists that have not yet been purchased. Send them a “nudge” and create a personalized view book with a coupon that showcases the items you know they already want. Using the information you already have to remind them of their own wants and desires will help close the sales loop.

Inquiry Response Material

When someone requests information about your company, instead of sending them a general, possibly overwhelming, booklet of all your products and services, give them exactly what they are looking for. You can create a custom brochure for each inquiry that prints only the pages that are relevant to the prospect.

You might be thinking…..even my grandmother is online; are you sure about this direct mail stuff?  The answer to that is, yes. I cannot speak for every industry out there, but for us at Hearing Aid Marketing and for other industries who have a very specific target demographic, direct mail is the medium that delivers predictable and reliable results, time after time.

Today, our email accounts are pretty likely to be flooded with all things junk mail, so… the power of a personalized piece of mail in your actual hands should not be underestimated. As you feel the sharp corners of the envelope in your hands and tear with reckless anticipation…your curiosity is already piqued with this piece of paper. This piece of actual mail is more likely to spend some time quality time on your desk, live on your kitchen table, or hang on your refrigerator to be faced by you multiple times per day. It is not simply seen once and navigated away from – it is held, opened, seen, held, and then seen some more.

Not only does it have a sensory leg up, Direct Mail can target like no other marketing medium. Today, lists and controlled demographics allow us to mail to exactly who is most likely to have a need for our products. That means less waste for us, and lower costs for our customers. Beyond that, we can further analyze prospect data and target groups differently…. big customers, lapsed customers, and consistent customers, and so on.

That said, your direct mail can really only be as successful as your targeting and customizing can be, and The Mailworks gives us the option to customize our print products in a way that was not possible before. Personalizing our already targeted message even further with hand written fonts and custom messages allow us to engage each individual recipient.

Direct mail is not as simple as choosing a design and mailing a few thousand postcards. Our campaigns are very high quality and The Mailworks advanced technologies and knowledgeable team have made that level of quality possible with digital printing, offset printing, folding, tabbing, live stamps, perforation and gluing, and other mail services.  The Mailworks also works hand in hand with us on the design of our pieces in order make sure all designs meet postal requirements and get the best postal rates available.

Last year alone, The Mailworks printed and mailed 28 million pieces of direct mail for us. Our partnership with The Mailworks has made our production more seamless, cost-effective, timely, and efficient that ever. For us, that means we can continue providing effective and creative direct mail to more businesses in our industry. For our customers, that means top notch direct mail, with the low prices and results that keep them coming back.

-Jessica Garrity

Marketing Specialist

FS Marketing

Take a look at our new digital print facility and drop shipment staging area.  If you are mailing on a national level and want to achieve the lowest postage rate, we are able to consolidate your mail with other mail we have in house so we can bring it as close as possible to the post office of entry.  We consistently hit all NDC major processing facilities  on a weekly basis. We consolidate the mail at our Albany, NY location and then truck weekly to New Jersey to be distributed across the country. This process is explained more in the video.

We also have special postcard pricing to compliment our new digital print facility’s capabilities.  This promotional print and mail pricing includes print, mail and postage all at one convenient low cost per piece.  We can also include variable data personalization at no additional cost. Rates are based on quantity, postcard size and postage class, so call your customer service representative to get a quote.  We can also help with purchasing a mailing list and the postcard design.   We can complete your printing and mailing services in 2-3 business days. Our direct mail specialists can help you through the entire process.

This chart focuses solely on letters and postcards. Notice that there are significant discounts in the “DSCF” class.  To receive these postal discounts you must enter your direct mail campaign at the post office closest to your direct mail piece’s final destination. For instance,  if you are mailing Albany, Schenectady, Troy, or Saratoga, you will achieve postal discounts by using a local print and mail vendor and having your mail entered at the New Karner Rd. Post office.  For instance,

On an average local standard mailing,  you would pay approximately $0.19 per piece in postage if entered at the New Karner Rd. Albany, NY SCF center.  If you chose to work with a vendor outside of the area, you would pay approx. $0.27 per piece.  Mailing locally will result in average of $80 per thousand savings.  If you are mailing 10,000 pieces, that really adds up!

For clients mailing more than 80,000 pieces there are other methods that can be used to achieve postal discounts.  If you are mailing large quantities on a national level, you may benefit from drop shipping.  Drop shipping cuts down on delivery time and postal costs. Your mail is trucked to the post office closest to entry, which achieves the SCF rate.  You must have large quantities for this to work.  On a 100,000 piece mailing, the average savings can result in upwards of $6,000 in postage.

To learn more about this, contact Albany NY print and direct mail specialists at 518-435-9300

The first: Starbucks

Birthdays don’t get easier as we get older, but a complementary, delicious chai tea latte with soy milk (or beverage of your choice) can certainly soften the blow of getting one year closer to “over the hill.” This is where the Starbucks piece gets to the heart of personalized mailings: invoking a warm feeling toward your brand/company from a consumer.  Getting a birthday postcard feels good.  It gives you a gift when you most need someone to acknowledge your special day.  The older we get, fewer and fewer people tend to make a fuss about our birthday. When you’re favorite company does, it feels good.   Warm fuzzies are now associated with Starbucks.

The second: Google AdWords

This delicious piece of mail is a 3rd quarter report charting the key metrics on clicks, impressions and costs of a Google AdWords account for an up and coming Albany marketing firm.   The information is extremely relevant to the business that received it.  This piece embodies another key characteristic of successful direct mail: RELEVANCE.  It’s not a generic informational piece, rather a highly personalized and targeted piece uniquely tailored to Rebel CMC’s business. It is more than a direct mail piece; it is a piece of company collateral.  It will be held on to for a long time, rather than the generic informational packet that gets tossed in the trash after a quick glance.

What makes both these pieces so fabulous? As much as we hate to admit it, mail can be boring; it can be static and irrelevant to us, the almighty consumers.  These personalized mail pieces represent the exact opposite: fresh, attractive…worthy of opening.  I see MY PERSONAL NAME in an advertisement and BOOM, I am interested.

Another key component to a successful direct mail campaign is response rate.  If people aren’t responding or engaging, your mail piece is not doing is job.  Personalized mail pieces are a key component to generating higher response rates. The more relevant you can get in your direct mailing, the more likely you are to make an impression.  The abilities in personalized print today are limitless.  If you have the information in your database, you can use it to trigger personalized text fields as well as images.  For instance, if your database lists each recipient’s gender, you could create two separate mail pieces geared to each sex.  Digital print makes this all possible.  We can trigger unique fields on the fly.  Of a 5,000 piece run of postcards or personalized booklets, no two need to be the same. The technology is vast.

The benefits of personalized mail are not revolutionary ideas to The Mailworks- we have been working for years to perfectly tailor personalized mailings to meet our client’s needs.  Finally, mega brands like Starbucksand Google are utilizing the tools to project their mail campaigns to the new level and we LOVE that they are getting on board. With the growing power of social media and the internet, direct mail has the unique ability to be a stronger communication method than ever before: it puts something concrete and tangible in the hands of the consumers.  We, as consumers, are constantly bombarded with so many different marketing messages over the course of the day that sometimes it can be overwhelming.  Messages can easily get lost.  Direct mail gives an opportunity to connect one-on-one with your target audience.

Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, considered gurus in the marketing industry, revolutionized marketing when The One to One Future was first published.  Since its initial publication, this book has become today’s bible for marketers; some even argue the book prepared the way for current Internet-based/personalized approaches to marketing.  They put it simply: “When two marketers are competing forthe same customers business, all other things being equal, the marketer with the greatest scope of information about that particular customer — the marketer with the most extensive and intimate relationship with that customer– will be the more efficient competitor.”  Personalized mail pieces, such as these, are what give you the leg-up on your competitors.

The Mailworks are seasoned veterans when it comes to personalized mailing.  Call us today and we can assist you with all your mailing needs!

Really USPS, AGAIN!?

Now hold the phone.  This increase isn’t just an increase for the sake of making customers pay more, but rather, part of the USPS’s overall strategy to finally fix the broken mailing system.  “The overall average price increase is small and is needed to help address our current financial crisis,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. “We continue to take actions within our control to increase revenue in other ways and to aggressively cut costs.”

With the increased use of technology, such as online bill pay and email, the USPS has really taken a financial hit in recent years. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.  According to the Washington  Post, the USPS lost $8 billion in fiscal 2010, and when numbers are  released for 2011, the agency’s financial position is expected to be in worse shape.  These discouraging statistics hit even closer to home when The Mailworks reported that the Utica, New York Distribution Center will be closing in early 2012.  The USPS is listed as the second largest employer in the U.S. (Wal-Mart is the  largest).  This phenomenon is not exclusively unique to the postal climate in the US:  up to a third of the present 9,000-strong network of post offices could be closed in the United Kingdom under similar restructuring.

This postage increase is not necessarily bad news for your business. In fact it’s is good news for Albany mail houses such as The Mailworks.  For example, first-class mail presort mailers will now be better for your business, especially small businesses who have recently felt the sting of our changing economy. When the new price increase goes into effect, the second ounce for presorted first class letters will be free. “This gives companies expanded opportunities to advertise new services and products to their customers as part of bill and statement mailings,” said Paul Vogel, President and Chief Marketing/Sales Officer.  So what does that mean for you?  It means that you will now be able to mail more elaborate, detailed marketing pieces at the first class rate to your customers with no additional cost.

Our team at The Mailworks can help you with all of your postage questions.  We have a savvy team of direct mail experts that are dedicated to helping our clients bring their direct mail ideas to fruition in a cost effective and efficient manner.

Most nonprofits will quality for nonprofit standard mail status. However there are some organizations that will be ineligible. To name a few:

• Business Leagues
• Chambers of Commerce
• Service Clubs
• Trade Associations

To apply, you must fill out form 3624 and show evidence that you are in fact a nonprofit organization (minutes to meetings, IRS tax exempt letter, etc). Approval can take a few weeks to be processed. If you find yourself in a situation where you need to get your mailing out immediately and can’t wait for the non profit mailing status to go through, you can mail your project at the normal third standard postage rate. Upon approval, you can request a refund for the difference.

A couple things to keep in mind – you do not need your own mailing permit to have non profit status. You can use your mail houses bulk mail permit number to save money on the cost of opening your own. Once approved, your organization will be registered to mail at non profit status at the post office at which you requested approval. To mail at other post offices requires additional paperwork and forms. It is important to work with a print and mail company that you feel comfortable with so you can establish a long term relationship.
To get a copy of form 3624 and receive help with establishing nonprofit standard mail status, contact The Mailworks.