Time is money. The time that you are currently spending printing and organizing promotional materials could be much better spent giving new clients your attention. Projects can move faster once you are no longer monitoring your printer for paper jams and low toner. Hours of your time and all of your counter space won’t be needed every time you put together a booklet. Instead, your printed materials will now just need you to do a quick quality check before they can be sent out into the world where they belong.

Consistency is important. No matter how wonderful your document design may be, inconsistent print runs can make you look less than professional. Variations in color saturation can negatively affect your brand recognition. Changes in paper weight, tone, or finish due to budget or space constraints in your office can cause big differences when it comes to the impact of your printed materials.

Save wear and tear on your office equipment. If you are trying to get the longest life out of your office printer, using it to handle every printing need your company may have is probably not the best choice. Consider sending some of the more print heavy projects to a professional printer. Letting someone else handle your client documentation binders, meeting agendas, company-wide policy pamphlets, and advertising brochures can greatly reduce the strain on your office printer while ensuring a quality product.

Enjoy larger print runs. Professional printers are in the business of handling print production on a larger scale than your office. This allows you to order larger quantities, often at a discounted rate, so you don’t have to worry about running out of company stationary, business cards, or price lists. Running your business successfully takes up enough of your focus, you shouldn’t have to worry about running out of take-out menus or rack cards as well.

Knowing when it’s time to hire a professional printer to handle your production needs can be hard. Adding the expense into your budget can seem counter productive. However, saving time and lightening the strain on your own equipment while maintaining a high quality product may actually be a big boost to your bottom line. Contact us, we can help you decide if outsourcing your company’s print production is a good way to help your growing company stand on a solid foundation.

One of the main benefits of email marketing is that it’s cheap. Just about any business can afford to send emails out to subscribers. This benefit, however, eventually turned into a disadvantage.

Because any organization can send marketing emails, inboxes eventually got overcrowded. Due to the amount of marketing emails being sent, Gmail started separating promotional emails from personal ones.

Still, many businesses practice email marketing because it’s easy. As a business owner, you have to ask yourself why you would try to enter such a competitive field.

Some business owners are now realizing that it’s better to let the pack fight over email inboxes. According to a recent Entrepreneur article, this creates a great opportunity for direct mail:

“Email might have changed the marketing environment for good, but you can use that change to your advantage. Let other businesses focus on email marketing. Let them sludge through the massive inbox overload that everyone is experiencing. In the meantime, there is not nearly as much competition in your standard mailbox — and that’s where you should be aiming your sales messages.”

Direct mail and email marketing are what’s known as perfect complements. Although they’re not the same, they serve a very similar purpose and most businesses only practice one of them.

Because of this relationship, overcrowded email inboxes mean that real mailboxes aren’t receiving enough attention. If you send direct mail to consumers, you’ll have their full attention. Plus, you won’t have to compete against a bunch of other messages like you would with email marketing.

To talk more about direct mail marketing, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.

Remember catalogs? Those heavy books sent out by companies looking for sales and inviting customers to thumb through? Much has been made about the decline of this marketing methods. Most analysts point to the proliferation of online shopping as the reason that catalog mailings began decreased sharply beginning in 2007. The argument makes sense from a timeline and a common-sense perspective, as online shopping allows for much of the same opportunities without the cost of printing and mailing.

But in 2013, for the first time since that 2007 bench mark, the number of catalogs mailed in the United States increased. In all, 11.9 billion catalogs were mailed throughout the country. That’s still only 60 percent of the amount mailed in 2007, but an important increase over the following years.

When looking at many of the catalogs mailed out today, it’s not difficult to find a reason for that resurgence. Much like direct marketing as a whole, catalogs are undergoing an evolution to adjust to current market and consumer trends. They’re no longer full of product listings; rather, they read much like actual books, showing products in action, and even including product and company-related stories.

At the same time, they still take advantage of still-existing catalog customer base. According to the Direct Marketing Association, 90 million Americans still purchase from catalogs, and the American Catalog Mailer’s Association completes the picture by stating that every customer who receives a catalog spends on average $850 on catalog purchases.

As a result, marketers are returning to the concept of catalog-based direct mailing. J.C. Penney’s announced the return of its home good catalog earlier this year, while IKEA – long a catalog proponent – made waves with the originality of its catalog-based advertisement about a “book-book.”

In short, catalog mailings remain an important part of direct marketing. And we can help you produce and mail them! Contact us today for more information on how a catalog can help your company’s business.

The Excitement Is Real 

It is difficult to deny that most of us still get some thrill out of checking our mailbox. Many of the items contained in that mailbox are of little to no value to us, but that does not stop us from looking. Kern Lewis, a contributor for Forbes.com, wrote the following about the value of snail mail,

I still get a stream of credit card solicitations from the big banks via direct mail, and not via e-mail (partly for security issues). Response rates on these mailings must make them worth doing, or Chase, Wells Fargo, et al., would not run these campaigns.

He asserts that obviously there is still value in snail mail promotional pieces, or else they wouldn’t exist in the first place!

What Companies Must Do To Make Direct Mail Work

In order to make direct mail pieces work, one must put in place a few elements that work. A couple of traits of a successful direct mail piece are as follows:

Generous- A mail piece should make the receiver feel very important. They should almost feel as though they have been invited into an exclusive club or otherwise rewarded in some way just for receiving the piece of mail.

A Unique Feel- Who would want to open a piece of mail that looks just like all of the others? This is why successful direct mail campaigns start with creating something that has a unique feeling to it.

With these two elements in tact, a direct mail piece has a higher chance of being a successful hit with those who receive it.

Please contact us for more information on direct mail pieces and how they are still relevant in our world today.

This personalized environment is perfect for direct mail marketing since you can better personalize physical mailings, unlike electronic marketing. If someone prefers a certain kind of physical package, you can physically send them that package. If you know they prefer products of a certain nature, you can include samples of these products. Do they have pets? You can even shape the envelope and letter to resemble pet-friendly shapes – like bones.

A recent case study shows how effective direct marketing truly is. History Asia decided to pursue a huge, specialized direct mail marketing campaign to advertise its new reality competition show. As the reality show was being filmed, photos of key events “were delivered twice a week… to introduce the series…. Each photo postcard consisted of a description of the series of the photographers and a call-to-action to tune in to the premier….” The response was more than favorable! “There were many positive comments… with some even requesting for high-res versions of the photos…. The total regional PR value garnered… to date is more than US$1.2 million.”

4CP, Inc. can help you with your direct mail marketing campaigns! We have been in the business for decades and throughout these years, we’ve helped numerous clients improve their business. In fact, we guarantee we can improve your marketing efforts and profits! Contact us today to learn more.

According to Statista the revenue of direct mail advertising has grown over recent years. In 2014 the revenue was 12 billion dollars. The response rate to direct mail has been found to be considerably higher than that of emails. DMA indicates that the response to mailings can actually be 10 to 30 times higher than emails. Digital ads have a lower response rate than emails do.

The theory as to why direct mail has the highest response rate is people are so overwhelmed by the quantity of emails they receive and the digital ads that they see they can’t and don’t read everything. Their mail is less overwhelming so they find they have the time to review a direct mailing.

By integrating direct mail and digital marketing success is even more likely. Embedding QR codes in the mail pieces is one way to make the mail more functional. Also providing a personalized mailing increases the chance the recipient will take notice.

Add in the fact that the USPS decided not to raise postal rates in January 2015 and the future of direct marketing is very bright. For further information about printing or mailing for your business contact us.

1. Start Early- Current research shows consumers begin their holiday shopping as early as October. With many advertisers focusing on Black Friday, starting your campaign early can help keep your ad from getting lost in the sea of Thanksgiving time mail advertisements.

2. Mail Often- Starting your campaign early gives you a chance to get multiple mailings into the hands of your potential customers without them feeling as if they are being bombarded by your store. Do not make the mistake of waiting for a response to your first mailing to schedule follow up mailings. It’s important to remember mailing time is often slower during the holiday season. While you wait to see how the first mailer performs, other retailers are competing for consumers’ attention.

3. Do Not Neglect the Online Market- More consumers are choosing to do the majority of their holiday shopping online. Big box and chain stores are masters of capturing this market, but many people still prefer to support local businesses and find unique gifts whenever possible. A direct mailer driving traffic to your website allows you to capture part of this market.

When planning your holiday marketing campaign, direct mail is an essential piece to ensuring your success. Starting early, mailing often, and using a combination of in store and online sales captures the attention of consumers. As the holiday season starts to wind down, following up with a mailer advertising your post-holiday sales can give your business that extra push to end the year with strong sales numbers.

For more information on effective direct mail campaigns and to start your holiday push, contact us today. Our dedicated staff is ready to assist with your most successful season yet.