8 Reason's

By David Frey, Marketing Best Practices, Inc
Direct mail is perhaps, one of the most powerful marketing mediums in use today. Few other marketing tools can deliver your message with exact precision at such a low cost. The amount of mail in your mailbox everyday attests to the effectiveness of this medium (If it didn't work, your mailbox would be empty!).
Here are eight reasons why I believe direct mail is still king of the marketing mediums:

Reason # 1: It works when you're notLike the old saying goes, "In rain, sleet, or snow" the mail arrives. Whether you're sleeping, vacationing, working, or walking, your direct mail is working for you. It gives your best sales presentation over and over again without you having to be present.

Reason# 2: It leverages your effortsDo you want to know how to waste your time? Give your best sales presentation to one person at a time. If you do this, you'll only sell one widget at a time. Send out thousands of letters and your best sales pitch is being presented to thousands of people simultaneously. That's called "leverage!"

Reason # 3: Allows you to target with precisionInstead of "spraying and praying" your message to people who may or may not be interested or even qualified to take advantage of your offer, direct mail allows you to pinpoint the people who fit your psychographic, demographic, and geographic profile.

Reason # 4: You get an immediate responseOnce you send out your direct mail piece it doesn't take long to get a response. Within one to two weeks you'll receive about 80 percent to 90 percent of all those who are going to respond. If your campaign works, you'll know about it quickly. If it's a bomb, you'll that quickly as well.

Reason # 5: It's easy to track your return on investmentIf you're a small business owner you can't afford to waste a single penny on wasteful marketing. With direct mail marketing you can code your mail pieces to determine the exact number of responses you received from each campaign. And as I said before, the results of your direct mail campaign come back fast, so once you know what worked and what didn't, you can immediately start to "tweak" your mail piece to increase your response and hold your marketing dollars accountable.

Reason # 6: It's relatively inexpensiveWith just $.34 (at the time of this writing) you can send out a direct mail piece that includes your full marketing message. It is amazing what you can get into a small business size envelope and keep under the $.34 limit. Photos, newspaper articles, letters, special reports, and more can be put in these envelopes for under $.34. This means you can reach 100 target prospects for only $34. Comparatively speaking, that's a bargain!

Reason # 7: It gets one-on-one attentionOne of the best things about direct mail is that it gets one-on-one attention from your target prospect. Unlike billboards or radio and television commercials that get your attention while two to three other things also have your attention. Direct mail is opened one piece at a time and read one piece at a time. It gives you the best chance of catching your prospect's attention and keeping it for a period of time.

Reason # 8: It's something you can touch and feel—it hangs aroundDirect mail is something that you can hold in your hand. It's not made of electrons that can be deleted with the twitch of a finger. It's not a radio frequency signal that is here and then gone a moment later. It is physical. It is something that can hang around for a period of time. It has "lingering" marketing effects.

All these reasons I've mentioned make direct mail a very powerful marketing medium that, if done right, can have a very high return on your marketing dollar.

Digital Booklets

DeFrance has always produced booklets, instruction manuals, educational booklets, employees handbooks and programs. With traditional printing is was only cost effective to produce longer runs leaving a huge void for quick turn around short run color booklets. Clients had to order a whole closet full and use them even after the information was outdated.

Since adding digital printing 2 years we have been able to change that making short run booklets cost effective with quick turn around times. It has also allowed our clients flexibility knowing they can order only what they need and change information on the fly.

This particular booklet is 12 pages, 4 colors throughout with 100# coated cover and 80# coated book for inner pages. Not shown the back cover also included die cut business card slits for the agents to include their cards.

If you are interested in a similar project or DeFrance's other capabilities please call or email us with you inquiry

Ronnie

619.474.8626

ronnie@defranceprinting.com

email greeting cards??

Hopefully everyone had a great Thanksgiving, enjoyed a few days off with family and some tasty food. We were closed on Thursday/Friday like most of you were and it was definetly a nice break.


I dont know about you but I recieved numerous Thanksgiving emails last week, an email greeting to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving. I counted them, 11 of them. Wow! Pretty cool right? Well if you asked who the 11 people were I couldn't tell you nor could I tell you what they said.


Email has a purpose, it's a great tool for business but it can be misused for purposes that need that personal touch. We didn't recieve 1 Thanksgiving day card in the mail, not 1. Imagine if you were the only company who sent your clients an old fashion Thanksgiving card where you adlibbed a little note and signed your name at the bottom. I guarantee that if you did your client would remember who sent it and you would be 1 rung higher on the ladder.


With a tough year like 2009 your clients need a reminder that someone appreciates them and took time out of their busy day to say Thank You. Businesses who have survived and will grow next year will only do so with building great relationships and bringing value to the table.

Video??

Well I keep seeing these cool video's out there but all I have is my generic camera. I took this while running 2 color Letterpress note cards. With any decent size run (2,000 press sheets or more) we have always run 2 presses at once. It does take some getting used to but it saves overall press time which in turn saves the client some $. This especially comes in handy when we get a 3 or 4 color Letterpress job. Which we often do.

Please excuse the amateur short, short film I promise I will get better. Enjoy

Rochester NY

Alright I have been blabbing about the the trip to Rochester NY since I returned and promised a little write up. Sorry this took so long for those very few of you who have been waiting. Here it is, sorry if it's a little long.

Xerox put on a workshop with Gimble & Associates in Rochester NY a few weeks ago. The purpose was to teach us about digital printing, variable data, promotional material, photo specialty products and book publishing along with our current products. Essentially show us what is available for you, our clients whether you need to increase business, lower your costs, target a new audience or reestablish a relationship with your current clients.

We have been transitioning DeFrance from a printing company to a marketing and printing company, offering our clients solutions rather than just products. This workshop was a great stepping stone and provided insight into variable data, data & tracking, list acquisition, combining direct mail with email, web to print, mailing & statistics and numerous other solutions.

Mr. Gimble also hammered on the "Marketing Plan", and it's importance for DeFrance and our clients. He asked what do we want to accomplish next year? What"s our goal? When you establish that goal then you can develop a plan that will help to achieve your goal. Once the plan is developed it needs to be looked at each and every month monitoring the results and adjusting as needed. We took the advice to heart are are in the process of developing a marketing plan that will begin January 2010 and we encourage you to create one of your own.

After the event we had time to stand around, talk amongst the marketers and printers sharing stories. The majority of the crowd agreed that is was time to stop being printers and become a solutions provider. Our clients need help just as we do and it's time to step up, share our ideas that help to make a difference and grow business. We began this transition process earlier this year meeting with clients, learning what they need and then developing a solution. Marketing is a process not an event, therefor we create plans for long term growth not instant.

If you have questions about any of this or want DeFrance to come by, talk more about our new solutions and how they can help, give us a call.

Thanks
Ronnie
619.474.8626

Vinyl for a local board shaper

RBF is a San Diego based surf board shaper, they have spent years perfecting the technique and have found a nitch with long boarders. Their boards have an old school feel with the wood stringer and a hand shaped solid wood fin on every board. Ron from RBF wanted DeFrance to create a simple 1 color logo that would be placed on every board letting other surfers know who shaped the board. We also created window stickers for his delivery trucks and extras to give out to cutomers. Over this summer RBF could hardly keep up with demand and looks to continue their success long into the future.

Thanks

Ronnie

619.474.8626

More Vinyl Projects

The "John's" is a yearly event and the above are the center piece's. In years past they have spray painted the white lettering and as you can imagine that has become a real pain. They asked if we had another idea the first thing that came to mind was Vinyl.

We took their already prepared artwork and cut out 60 sets of doors & lettering on glossy white vinyl. The customer loved them and it imoroved the look and feel of the center piece's.

Enjoy

Ronnie

619.474.8626