Boy, how things have changed!

Back in 1976, critics were complaining that there was too MUCH coverage of the Montreal Olympics and that athletes were too intense about winning!

http://archives.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/clips/7333/

This was also the time when Olympic sports were called ‘amateur’ sports and funding was pretty pitiful. The Montreal Olympics demonstrated how a lack of support, financial and otherwise, can result in the first-ever host country  to go without a Gold medal. (Canada ended up in 27th position with 5 Silver and 6 Bronze – still an accomplishment considering the lack of resources for Canadian athletes.)

In contrast, the 21st 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics was fueled by a 5-year, $117-million program called “Own The Podium” designed to improve Canadian high-performance sport.

Did it make a difference?

Like… duh!

Fourteen – that’s 14 – Gold medal performances! 14 times that O Canada! was played on the international stage!

Canadians athletes nowadays have access to more and better training facilities, have better equipment, have more opportunity for international competitions, have access to better rehab facilities, and have the ability to better support themselves while training.

So what does this have to do direct mail?

Other than having a chance to say how proud I was to be Canadian at the end of it all yesterday and walk around with a puffed-up chest, it’s a good example of what can be achieved when you are willing to SPEND the money to achieve RESULTS!

Too many times, direct mailers are trying to find short-cuts to great results.

It ain’t gonna happen!

If you’re always going to go with the cheapest price knowing full well that you’re taking a chance, don’t expect a “miracle on ice.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_Ice

Be willing to pay for professional services and direct mail expertise. In the long run, it will SAVE you money and put you on the path to Gold-medal direct marketing.

Regards,
Rainer

It’s been a while since I last posted, whoa, quite a while. Life seems to whiz by so fast these days.

I’ve been working on a few direct mail side projects, testing new content delivery techniques and trying to figure out what would be best way to deliver content to you.

Whatever the method is, it’s got to be quick, efficient and, most importantly, be of value to my readers and clients.

Video is hot these days both the ‘talking heads’ version and screen capture. It seems people have less time and are less willing to sit & read especially if they have to do it using a computer monitor. I don’t blame them.

Our world is filled with a constant daily barrage of information, and unless we want to spend our whole day reading and watching, we have to get very particular about what we choose to spend our time on.

I REALLY want to help direct mailers get their mailings out the door as cost-effectively and as quickly as possible.

The best way I know is to pass on production and printing tips/techniques/secrets so that mailers can be pro-active and AVOID a lot of the problems that cause delays and additional costs.

What is your preferred method of receiving such valuable information?

Here are some suggestions: (or suggest your own)

• weekly video posts
• weekly written posts
• free mini-course by digital download
• free mini-course by CD/DVD
• combination of the above

All the best,
Rainer

New web services are coming online every day. I regularly receive notifications of new web-to-print sites.

In fact, one of the fastest-growing companies in the world is Vistaprint, a printing company who supplies free business cards as a lead generator.  (The free cards are actually a pretty good deal, so you can get them by clicking on a link on my home page at http://www.dmgraphics.ca).

One of the biggest printing markets is in direct mail, so it’s no wonder that many printers are creating online printing sites, and at the same time offering direct mail services through them.

And while I recommend Vistaprint for select printing services, would I recommend them or any of the other online printers for a direct mail project?

Yes, under certain conditions… but mostly NO!

Let’s look at the “Yes, under certain conditions…” first.

This is very limited yes. If you are sending out simple mailers like a postcard to a small, clean list, say less than 1,000, you will probably be fine. Even if it gets screwed up, you will probably not go bankrupt (hopefully).

However, for larger mailings, especially with multiple lists, or packages that require envelopes, letters and other inserts, I would never recommend online services.  I would even send you to an offline competitor before recommending online services.

Why?

Many reasons.

Probably most importantly is the hands-on customer support that is required for most mailings. Each step of the direct mail process – data, printing, personalization and lettershop – can easily become complicated with minor hurdles becoming major stumbling blocks when handled by an online automated service.

An offline direct mail shop with a reasonable amount of experience under their belt is going to be your best bet. If it’s someone in your area, even better. You can always make a trip to their plant to check on things, meet your account manger, get a free lunch, etc.

A bricks-and-mortar business is still going to be your safest route for this type of service.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the automation culture of the web and its 24/7 availability, but NOT for direct mail. Don’t say I didn’t warn you – price and the latest whiz-bang online technology is not always best.

Rainer

Occasionally I come across articles on direct mail that are insightful for readers of Direct Mail Insider.  Today I am posting a link to a new article on Variable Data Printing (VDP), and specifically how it can help your business.

VDP has been around for at least 30 years ever since I got into direct mail. But in those days, it was mostly a name/address block and a salutation. Very few other variables were used in the copy since relationship marketing had not yet become a common marketing technique.

With the technological advancement of both software and hardware in recent years, VDP has become more sophisticated — and affordable, especially for businesses who can only afford to mail smaller campaigns.

The article I came across is called What Is VDP And How Can It Help Your Business?

Happy reading!
Rainer

P.S. Check out the article and see how VDP can be a powerful marketing tool. Read it here.

Unreasonable Clients Do Not Work Hand-In-Hand With Their Vendor Partners. Nothing That Goes Wrong Is Their Fault.

I was on a couple of direct marketing forums over the past few days and at one point the focus of the posts switched over to ‘clients and their sometimes unreasonable demands.’

Having been in the trenches of direct mail for almost 30 years, I certainly felt I had some expertise and opinion on this particular subject.

Mail production is at the tail end of a mailing and by that time, a lot of money and time has already been invested into the campaign by the client. At this point, they have gone through strategy, design, data analysis, board or manager approvals, perhaps even printing.  These various stages may have taken days, weeks or months depending on the complexity of the project.

When looking at the different components of a direct mail campaign, the importance of the stages relative to the success of the mailing usually goes something like this:
40% list
40% offer
20% creative execution

That’s 100%. No more % left over for production.

And yet, the production – printing, data, lettershop, even mail delivery – can make or break the campaign.

Too many mailers at this stage feel that the campaign is as good as done.

And with most mailings, this is probably true. If you are hooked up with a true vendor partner who knows what he/she is doing and will actually work with you, it’s a safe bet that the physical execution of your mailing will sail through to your donors or consumers, as planned.

But when things are rushed in the execution phase, this is when problems can occur and unreasonable demands made. Too many times, it’s up to the lettershop (mailshop) to make up time that was frittered away in the front end of the campaign.

Many times, a drop date to the post office was missed by one hour. Could that ONE hour have been made up somewhere in the design approval stage, or in the strategy meeting? Could the list broker have returned a call just ONE hour faster?  Could the client’s production manager have stayed at work ONE extra hour to finish the project details?

The first problem is: when the job gets rushed,  the risk of mistakes rises dramatically.

The second problem is: whose fault is the problem – the client or the lettershop?

Unreasonable clients:

* Will always say it’s the fault of the lettershop, even though the lettershop had to skip their usual quality control procedures to get the job out on time!

* Will always demand a post-mortem meeting to discuss how and why the lettershop screwed up!

* Will always tell only half the story (their half) to their manager!

* Will always want compensation for something that could’ve been avoided by the client!

* Will always ‘nickel-and-dime’ the vendor and question everything on the final invoice even though the vendor went out of their way and performed many tasks gratis!

* Will continue to repeat the same behavior over and over, until the vendor ‘fires’ them!

* Will go from one vendor to another wondering why the vendors are constantly screwing up!

* Will never admit to their own shortcomings!

In the end, unreasonable clients will never get their jobs properly executed until they learn what it takes to work within the system, on both a professional and social level.

Rainer Fischer
Your Direct Mail Success Coach

As I was reading through a pile of magazines and articles looking for interesting angles on direct mail printing, I received a call from my car mechanic that my car was ready.

I should mention that whenever I buy or lease a new car, I tend to have it serviced by the dealership to keep the warranty intact, and to make sure that there is never a reason for them to renege on any major repair costs.  I love my Odyssey van and have opted to keep and maintain it instead of trading it in for something else.

However, repairs tend to get more major and expensive with age and, at that point, I try to find an independent mechanic who I can trust will do the repairs in my best interest, i.e. won’t do unnecessary repairs.

In the past, I have had a mechanic charge me a paltry $100 for a transmission repair on my BMW (before kids, when I still had money) that every other dealership wanted to charge me $4,000!

Fortunately for me, a neighbour of mine led me to a similar mechanic for my Odyssey.

On a recent trip a couple of months, a front spring broke on my van and while I was able to make it home and then to the repair shop, it was basically undrivable.  Although my new mechanic was completely booked up, I explained my predicament about needing my van (what family can survive with only one vehicle these days?) and he said he would nevertheless fix it for me — that day.

As the day wore on and then the evening, I was resigned to the fact that it was not going to get fixed that day.

But as I was preparing to go to bed, I received a call that he was bringing the repaired van to my house… at midnight!

I was shocked, and even more shocked, when I asked about paying the bill. He said, “Just drop by in the next couple days and we’ll straighten it out.”

Try driving your car away from a dealership repair shop without paying!

Then just over this past weekend, as luck would have it, the battery indicator light on my dashboard came on indicating a battery or alternator problem.  So of course, I brought it over to my mechanic for repair.

That was when I received his call.

He told me, “Your van is ready. I’ll come to pick you up.”

Hesitatingly, I asked, “How much?”

Expecting a bill of $500 or so for a new alternator, I was again pleasantly surprised when he told me that it only needed a new belt, not the alternator. Cost = $96.

So, why am I talking about car repairs and mechanics on a direct mail blog?

Wouldn’t you feel more relaxed and at ease knowing that your direct mail printer is looking after YOUR best interests, not the company’s?  It’s the service that will differentiate your ideal printer from the rest.  It’s the service on the exceptional jobs that will build trust and confidence.

With quality and delivery schedules being a constant, isn’t it better to be working with someone you can TRUST will not charge you for unnecessary services or products?  In my experience, the printing “big boys” or MegaPrinters usually cannot be as service-oriented as the smaller, mid-sized printers.

But whoever you choose as your trustworthy dm ‘mechanic’ is ultimately up to you.

Build a strong relationship with your ‘mechanic’ and you will produce your mail campaigns with ease and confidence.

Rainer

P.S. For your own personal direct mail mechanic, head on over to DM Graphics.

There is going to be nothing interesting in this post other than a test of the latest internet technology.

It will not help you with direct mail but it will keep you informed!

Rainer

Welcome to Direct Mail Insider where you will learn the secrets of successful direct mail.

We are currently in the process of setting up this site. Soon you will have all the answers to your direct mail questions.

In the meantime, any graphics or links that you see on these pages are live, so check them out. You can also visit our Welcome page for more information.

Stay tuned for further posts. Feel free to leave any comments!