Many printing professionals view direct mail simply as another value-added service to offer clients. But emphasizing direct mail has helped some distributors increase sales, gain and retain clients, and compete with larger competitors. Here's a look at how three distributors have benefited from offering direct mail, plus tips for getting started in the niche:
High Ratings for Handling a Hassle
Mark Doerr, account executive of Chagrin Falls, Ohio-based distributorship Dynamic Design & Systems Inc., recently completed a direct mail project that has earned his client more than $28,000. Will-Burt Inc., a manufacturer of telescoping masts (commonly used on vans by TV stations that offer live broadcasts), wanted to market its recently expanded facility. Doerr outsourced a search for the names and addresses of TV and radio facilities within a 300-mile radius of Will-Burt. Doerr's list broker subscribes to different lists and can search for firms by city, county or radius. The search resulted in 1,900 mailing addresses.
Dynamic Design & Systems designed a 4-color post card in house that included the phrase, "Get that shot during ratings, don't let your mast keep you down." A few weeks after the piece mailed, the distributorship's customer gained 14 customers and approximately $30,000 in new business, Doerr says. "Will-Burt was thrilled," he says.
While helping a client make money is always one of Doerr's goals, he says helping a client save money can be as important. Another client recently approached him, wondering if it would be smart to outsource the printing of 5,000 letters instead of copying them in house. Doerr said yes and asked how the company was preparing the letters for mailing. "One poor woman would run the letter through the company's copier," he says. "Then, using the company's database, she would print 5,000 Avery labels, fold the letters, stuff them into preprinted #10 standard envelopes, seal the envelopes, apply the stamps and mail them."
Dynamic Design & Systems offered a time-saving solution. It printed, folded and stuffed the letters into imprinted envelopes that included names and addresses from the client's mailing list. The distributorship also sorted the pieces for postal-service delivery. Doerr says he saved the client approximately 14 cents per piece because of his firm's postal-rate discount. (Dynamic Design & Systems uses U.S. Postal Service-approved software and sorts according to postal specifications in order to receive the discount.) The distributorship sent the job "presorted standard," using its own indicia. Says Doerr: "We were able to do the whole project in a couple of hours, rather than the woman doing the project by hand over the course of a week."
Staying On Time (and Smelling
Good)
Direct mail accounts for 75 percent of
Englewood, N.J.-based Freedom Graphic Services Inc.'s sales. One of its big-name
clients is General Motors (GM). Bill Whartenby, the distributorship's production
manager, says he provides 24 million to 36 million envelopes every three months
to help GM market its cars. The 6-color envelopes are 33ˇ4 x 91ˇ4 inches with a
poly window on the face. Freedom Graphic Services is owned by Palm Beach,
Fla.-based Workflow Management Inc., which takes care of its printing
needs.
Whartenby says he keeps GM happy by
ensuring that its envelopes mail on time. This can be challenging because many
of GM's print marketing campaigns are coordinated with multimedia efforts such
as radio and TV commercials. In September 2001, GM started a multimedia campaign
to introduce its 2002 mid-sized cars. The campaign ran through Nov. 30, 2001.
Freedom Graphic Services handled the direct mail portion of the project,
conducting a target mailing to GM credit-card holders. The mailing had to arrive
in clients' mailboxes by Sept. 25, 2001, the same day the offer began airing on
radio and TV. Whartenby used two lettershops to ensure on-time mailing.
Whartenby says he enjoys listening to
clients' needs, then offering creative possibilities to satisfy them. One of his
clients recently wanted a direct mail campaign that included an insert doused in
a lavender scent. "They wanted the recipient to open the envelope and have the
scent waft out [for a calming effect]," Whartenby says. The idea was easier said
than done. "Few printers are willing to apply scents and have their shops
overwhelmed with the scent, which may affect their workers," Whartenby says.
Because the project took place during the anthrax scare, both companies worried
about placing more than 1 million scented envelopes in the U.S. mail.
Freedom Graphic Services tested
different envelope types and scent amounts until its client's designers were
satisfied. The distributorship offered a translucent envelope with .0038 mg of
scent. The envelopes were produced in New York. The letters were printed in New
Jersey, then shipped to Massachusetts to be scented, boxed in cartons and
wrapped in plastic. The letters and envelopes then were shipped to Pennsylvania
to a lettershop willing to complete the inserts and mail the piece. "It all
worked out well," Whartenby says. "My wife received one of the envelopes in the
mail and loved the effect. She even bought the product."
One Customer Turns Into 50
For three years, Rick Garrett has been a top seller at Tempe, Ariz.-based distributorship BC Graphics. The self-described print broker predicts this year won't be different. Nine years ago, Garrett started offering direct mail. His decision earned him a $1.5 million-a-year account (his biggest) and new clients nationwide. "Direct mail is a value-added service," he says. "It separates you from every other [competitor] in town."
One of Garrett's best success stories involves one client that turned into 50. The client was a distributor for a water-softener manufacturer that had 300 dealers nationwide. BC Graphics designed, printed and mailed 81ˇ2 x 11-inch self-mailers promoting the dealer's $4,000 product. When folded, the mailer measured 51ˇ2 x 81ˇ2 inches and was targeted toward people who could afford the item.
At the time, BC Graphics' client was the fifth-largest dealer for the water-softener firm. After the mailing, it became the largest. But that's not all: The direct mail campaign caught the attention of the client's corporate headquarters in Ohio. Executives at the headquarters contacted Garrett and asked if he could create a template its smaller dealers could use for their own marketing purposes. Garrett offered to handle the dealers' printing and mailing as well. "We ended up providing the service for about 50 dealers across the country," Garrett says.
Tips for Direct Mail Newcomers
* Partner with a mail house. "I'm not a mailing expert, and I don't have to be," Garrett says. "I know the basics; the mailing house is the expert." Garrett says mail houses are a good source of printing, so they can be both a vendor and a customer. "You can bring them work, and they can bring work to you," he says.
* Adhere to postal regulations. Garrett says he once provided a "beautiful" direct mail piece that was printed well. "Then it went to the mail house," he says. "By the time I got there, we learned that if the piece had been one-fourth of an inch shorter, the customer would have saved more than $10,000 in postage. The project didn't even cost that much to produce." (Visit www.usps.gov for information on postal regulations.)
* Provide disclaimers with mailing lists.
"With [millions of] records available on business-to-business mailing lists, you can't physically call each record every three months to keep them as accurate as you'd like them to be," Garrett says. "Sometimes the marketing director named on the list will no longer work there."
* Keep one person on a project from beginning to
end. "Have one person follow a project from estimating all the way through billing," Whartenby says. "That person will remember all the little things that happened during the project, which might be relevant during billing."
* Add titles for better targeting. Doerr says address-window titles help to increase response rates. "Fleet Manager," "Future Window Buyer" or even "Current Resident" works better than no title, he says.
* Don't finance postage for customers.
"This can become very expensive and tie up cash flow," Garrett says. "There's no return on that money. Get the postage money up front--that's what a mail house would do."
Kara Gebhart, a freelance writer in Cincinnati, is a former assistant editor at Print Solutions. Email us your comments at editors@printsolutionsmag.com.
