Direct Mail Tips & Tricks

Envelopes: When using an envelope for your direct mail marketing piece, remember that people open envelopes from the back. Therefore, be sure that the envelope inserts face the back (flap side) of the envelope. This is especially important, as AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) depends on the recipient reading material in a specific order.

Post cards: When using a post card, remember that the post man organizes the mail with all the addresses facing the same way. This often means that the first thing the recipient sees is the side of the post card that contains the mail panel. Therefore, make sure this side of the post card is as well designed and eye catching as the reverse. If you haven't captured the recipient's attention in seven seconds, they may never turn the post card over to see the other side.

Post cards: When using a post card, consider cutting down on the size of the mail panel. The mail panel must conform to USPS requirements, but especially on large post cards, that does not mean the mail panel must occupy one-half of one side of the post card.

Letters: Use a Johnson Box – a headline above the text of the letter – to state the main message of the offer or catch the recipient's attention.

Capital letters: In general, refrain from using all capital letters anywhere in the direct mail piece. They are hard to read, take more of the recipient's time, and reduce the impact of the mail piece.

The Sales Letter

The sales letter is an essential part of a direct mail package sent in an envelope. Here are some ideas for writing an effective sales letter.

Tone: be friendly and personal and write conversationaly (that is, like you are talking to the reader). Use the second person (you).

Format: use a standard format – one inch margins, 10 or 12 point type (depending on font), adequate spacing between paragraphs. Include a P.S. that contains your main message, asks for the order, or makes an offer. The P.S. is always read.

Sense of urgency: create a sense of urgency for response by giving a deadline for reply or offering something for the first number of responders.

After you have completed the letter, put it aside for a while, then read it while pretending you are the recipient. Note your reaction – were you convinced or did you decide to ignore the letter?

When you have a draft you are satisfied with, ask someone else to read it and offer suggestions for improvement.

Tips For Using Type Effectively in Page Layout

Tip1: Match the size of the type to the column width. Some grid designs call for wide or narrow columns. In general, use a small type size with narrow columns and a larger type size with wide columns. Columns that have fewer than five words per line are difficult to read and retard comprehension; adjust the type size accordingly.

Tip2: Learn about reverses. Reverses - white text appearing in a black background - should be used sparingly, often for emphasis. If you like the look of a reverse, try creating an initial capital letter by reversing a single letter, or reverse page numbers for design effect. In addition, select the fonts for the reverse carefully. Fine serifs and thin letter strokes may not be visible when reversed.

Tip 3: Distinguish between hyphens, en dashes and em dashes. Hyphens and en dashes are punctuation marks. Each is a different size, and each has a specific use. Hyphens (-) are the smallest and are used to hyphenate words and to separate characters in a phone number. En dashes (–) are used to show duration or range (such as January 1–31 or #76–100). Em dashes (—) are used in place of single or double hyphens to indicate a parenthetical phrase or to set apart clauses in a sentence. En and em dashes can be found in the character set of the font you are using.

Tip 4: When necessary, adjust character spacing for best appearance. Using typographer's marks (such as quotation mark's and en and em dashes) and adjusting the spaces between characters for visual appearance adds a professional touch to your typesetting that will distinguish it from word processing. The degree of attention paid to the size, shape and spacing of individual letters in a document is up to you.

Is there a recommended font and type size for age groups?

There are type size guidelines for several age groups, all designed to promote readability. In general, the younger or older your readership, the larger the type size should be.

For predominantly senior readers (age 65 and older), set body text in 14 to 18 point. In particular, avoid fine print (8 point or lower)

For readers in the 40-65 age group, use 11 or 12 point body type.

For general audiences, body type of 10-11 points is suitable.

For young children or beginning readers, select a larger type size (14 points).

If you don't know the age of your readership, or if your readership spans a large age range of adults, use 10-11 point type. In addition, remember that the actual and apparent size of a font may appear different. For example, some fonts at 12 point appear visually smaller than others.

Stay Out of The Waste Basket

When you return home from a business trip or vacation, what method do you use to sort your mail?

1. Bills, personal mail, advertising mail
2. First class mail and all other mail
3. Important or interesting-looking mail and all else

We assert that no matter what method you use, an eye catching mail piece will make the first cut and stay out of the waste basket long enough for you to take a second look. The same is true for your customers or prospects. Marketing mail can survive a first glance if it is well designed and of obvious quality.

Whether your marketing mail is a postcard, self-mailer or traditional direct mail piece enclosed in an envelope, the choice of paper is an important quality consideration. The stock should be sturdy enough that the mail piece can withstand high speed mail processing without damage, and appropriate to the printing process. And if you are using post-press processes such as die cutting or embossing, you will want to select a stock that is known to produce a good result.

Why does half the space on a postcard have to be devoted to the address?

It may surprise you to learn that it doesn't! The practice of placing a vertical line midway across the postcard and using all the space to the right for the outbound address is a holdover from postcard designs dating back to 1907.

The term for the part of the postcard containing the outbound address is the address block, and the amount of space required for it depends on the elements of the address - the number of lines and the length of the longest line. In addition, the United Staes Postal Service (USPS) has requirements for the location of the address block and the barcode in order to qualify for postage discounts. But meeting these requirements generally does not require devoting the entire right half of the postcard to the address.

Depending on the size of the postcard, the amount of information in the address block, and other items such as the return address and the postal indicia, it may be possible to devote much more room than you thought to the sales message or teaser copy.

Interesting Direct Mail Statistics

A recent study by Vertis Communications in Baltimore found that 46% of adults responded to direct mail in 2007. This remains steady from 47% in 2003. It means that Internet has not yet taken over the world of marketing and you can and should still use direct mail as part of your marketing strategy.

Here are some more findings to consider as you design your direct mail campaign:

• 72% of adults said they have replied to direct mail pieces that contained a “buy one, get one free” offer. This means direct mail pieces that include an irresistible offer will get results. Also, it indicates that the word “free” is more appealing to people than a discount. The study found that 63% of people have responded to direct mail that offered a percentage discount on a purchase. This also indicates that you should include an offer in many, if not all, of your direct marketing pieces.

• 57% of women age 35-64 want companies that they’ve indicated interest in to follow up with direct mail pieces that are personalized for their needs. 38% of men age 35-49 prefer generic direct mail pieces when they’ve indicated interest. Is your target market made up of mostly men or women? The gender of the recipient of your direct mail obviously will influence the content of your copy and the form you send it in. For women, you would be better off sending a brochure, with details about how you can solve their exact problem. For men, a postcard printing piece will do, with general information that you would want everyone to know about your product.

• 85% of women age 25-44 read direct mail pieces. If you’re sending direct mail to households, it’s best to address them to the woman living there. You’ll have a better chance of your piece being read, and she’ll probably relay your message to her husband or others in the household after reading your piece. And, you can choose the right words and graphics to market to women just by doing a little research on the Internet.

Create Curiosity

Think for a moment of how the mail looks when it arrives at your home or office. It will be oriented with the addresses all facing you and sorted from smallest to largest. Keep this in mind when you are designing your direct mail piece and improve the chances that your mailer will stand out from the rest of the mail.

If an envelope is being printed with a return address and a postal indicia, then it costs nothing extra to have teaser copy printed at the same time. Teaser copy is anything - a picture, an image, text or a combination - that piques the reader's curiosity or arouses interest.

Here are a few tips for writing good teaser copy:

• Be honest; don't mislead the reader. Make sure the teaser copy on the outside relates to what's inside. Misleading the reader solely for the purpose of getting him to open the envelope can backfire.
• Urge action. Create a sense of urgency in responding by providing a call to action with a limit (either time or number).
• Write a benefit statement. Answer the question "what's in it for me" in the teaser copy.
• Be sure the words and pictures work together. If using graphics or a photograph to illustrate the teaser copy, be sure one explains the other. Otherwise you risk confusing the reader.
  

Why Can't I Copy Pictures From Their Web Site To Use In My Printed Material - They Look Great On My Computer Screen.

You are certainly right about photographs looking great on a web page.The phosphors on the computer screen lend a brightness to the color that is visually appealing.

But color created by light shining through red, green and blue phosphors cannot be exactly reproduced with the cyan, magenta and yellor colors of printing ink. Even more importantly, the digital photo files have been optimized for fast loading on the web page by reducing the file size through file compression. And for photographs in JPG format, a lossy compression technique was used.

This means that the original high resolution photograph had pixels permanently removed to make the file smaller. If enough are removed, the remaining pixels will be visible to the naked eye instead of smoothly blending in to one another. In specific circumstances (such as taking a very large photograph and using it in a smaller size) the pixelation may be less apparent though still visible.

Turn You Business Card into a Marketing Tool

Enhance the likelihood that your business card will be kept by printing something of value on the back. here are some possibilities.

• Information: Use the back of your business card to provide reference or other information of interest such as a calendar, a size chart, weights and measures or emergency phone numbers.
• Invitation: On the back of an organization's business card, print the meeting time and place and an invitation to attend the next meeting.
• Appointment: Physicians, dentists and other professionals can use the back of the business card to record the patient's next appointment.
• Notes: Include lines to accommodate note-taking on the back of the business card. Use the space to record things you want the prospect to remember - an additional phone number, a referral, the item number of a product you sell.
  

Does the printing industry have trade customs I should know about?

 The printing industry of North America's trade customs are a set of common business practices prevalent in the industry but adopted by each individual business owner. The industry's first trade customs were originally announced at the annual convention of the United Typothetae of America in 1922 and were updated five times through 2002. At that time, two industry organizations (NAPL and PIA) released a three-part report entitled Best Business Practices for the Printing Industry to take the place of the trade customs. The best practices report includes guidelines for digital-asset-management issues; terms and conditions of sale, including quotations, orders, delivery and production schedules; and a glossary of the industry's most common workflow terms.

Like trade customs, the purpose of the best practices is to act as a framework so that printers and their customers can discuss and develop a clear understanding of how they will do business. When printed on the back of an invoice (as ours are), they become our Terms and Conditions of Sale.

A Horse of a Different Color

Perhaps you had the disappointment of having the color on your printed piece look somewhat different then if did on your computer monitor. There is a scientific reason for this - the RGB (red, green and blue) phosphors that create color on the computer monitor are capable of producing more colors than the three process printing inks (cyan, magenta and yellow or CMY). And the process printing inks, when combined cannot always match exactly the single hue of a PMS spot color.

To put it more simply - there is not a perfect overlap in the range of colors that are both visible to the human eye, reproducible with RGB additive color (like on a computer screen), and reproducible with CMYK subtractive color (like a printed newsletter). Whereas the human eye can see billions of color, RGB can reproduce 16 million and CMYK printing 5-6 thousand. So some colors will convert from RGB to CMYK fairly well (because the color is in the CMYK color gamut).

To illustrate, try this exercise. Using PageMaker, Publisher, Quark XPress, InDesign, or PhotoShop, convert RGB blue to CMYK. Watch what happens to the color. Does it turn to purple? Now reduce the percentage of magenta by 50% and watch it turn back to blue. This is a dramatic example of how additive and substractive color spaces are not perfectly overlapped.

A Useful Promotional Product

Note pads are a versatile and appreciated promotional product that can be printed for a specific event or for general use. Follow these tips to be sure your pads are as useful as they are attractive.

• Select the right paper. People use pens and pencils to write on pads. Select a paper made for writing (bond, writing or text) and with an appropriate finish. Avoid coated papers, papers with a prominent finish, and papers too vividly colored.
• Advertise with subtlety. Keep your logo and contact information out of the way of the note taking section.
• Leave room for the notes. Design the note pads to provide adequate space for the purpose - taking notes. This is particularly important for small (4 1/4 x 5 1/2) inch note pads.
• If using a screen or grid behind the note-taking area, keep it light. Avoid images that will compete with the notes.

We will be happy to refresh the design of your company's note sheets or help with your first order.

What is a Bleed and How Does it Affect My Printing Costs?

A bleed is any printed element on the page that extends beyond the edge of the sheet. A full bleed means the printed elements extend beyond all four edges of the sheet.

Even though it may look like we have printed to the edge of a sheet, we actually have trimmed away the paper and an extra one-eighth inch on the image so it looks like we printed to the edge of the sheet. This process is called trimming to the bleed.

To include a bleed in your design, the image must be extended by one-eighth of an inch (o.125) past the trim line, and the press sheet must be larger than the finished size of the printed piece. Depending on the finished size of the piece, this may mean we get fewer finished pieces out of a standard press sheet. If you would like to include a bleed as a design element, let us know and we can advise you how.