Personalized Print Is Not Only Effective, It’s Sustainable!

As marketers, we love personalized printing. It offers a lower cost per lead. It also results in higher per order values and increased ROI. But there is another (often overlooked) benefit of personalization, too. It improves sustainability.

Is personalized marketing more sustainable? Yes! Here’s why:

• It tends to be more targeted and focused. This means you are likely sending out fewer but more relevant pieces, reducing the overall footprint of your campaign.
• Personalization requires a clean and relevant database. Cleaner databases mean that your recipients produce fewer undeliverable pieces.
• Personalized printing relies on digital production, eliminating plates, chemicals, and spray powders.

Let’s look at three examples of how personalized printing can reduce the environmental impact of your campaign.

Personalized booklets: Say you are a small college, mailing four-color catalogs to prospective students. Each catalog is 252 pages, covering various disciplines and extra-curricular activities. Only 25% of the material might be relevant to each student, who never read the other 75%. What a waste of paper, ink, and energy! Now, say you print 64-page catalogs of highly relevant material instead. Not only does this increase the relevance (and impact) of the booklets, but you’ve just reduced your environmental impact by 75%.

Personalized postcards: In a static, untargeted mail campaign, you might send out 15,000 postcards to an undifferentiated mailing list. By personalizing the campaign, you mail to a highly targeted segment of customers instead. Now, rather than sending out 15,000 pieces, you might send only 5,000 pieces, but because these offers are more targeted, your ROI on the campaign is higher. Plus, you’ve just reduced your printing and mailing volume by two-thirds.

Database cleansing: Even if you still choose to mail to your entire list, you can be more sustainable by simply de-duping, updating, and cleaning your lists. By eliminating duplicates, misspelled names, and undeliverable addresses, you are eliminating the waste, cost, and environmental impact of producing mail that will never reach its destination. One cataloger slashed its print volumes by 50% simply by cleaning up its list!

Personalized printing is not only good for the planet, but it’s good for business, too. So do a marketing double-dip—personalize it!

Tapping the Unique Characteristics of Print

When it comes to marketing, no channel reigns supreme. Every channel has its strengths and weaknesses, and part of creating relevance is capitalizing on the strengths of each one. For example, email is powerful for flash sales and quick updates, while print has a beauty, longevity, and stopping power that digital channels can’t replicate. Here are some ways to capitalize on the strengths that are unique to print:

1. Tap the tactile experience. Integrate tactile media, such as textured surfaces or stocks to engage your audience and create a memorable experience more deeply.

2. Use the wonder of printed color. Digital color is beautiful, but nothing replicates the depth and richness of a beautifully printed piece. Take advantage of the vibrant nature of printed color to evoke emotion.

3. Add special effects such as coating, die-cuts, and embossing. All computer screens feel the same — smooth and flat. Print offers the opportunity to add physical, tactile embellishments that make your audience want to engage with it over and over again.

4. Go dimensional. Whether it’s a piece that pops open into a dimensional shape or a lovely box containing a gift card, use the dimensionality of print to make people feel special. Dimensional mail is excellent for getting past gatekeepers in B2B marketing, too.

5. Include product samples, personalized booklets, and other incentives not possible in a digital world. The Global Ad Impressions Study from the Advertising Specialty Institute, for example, consistently finds that people are more likely to purchase from a company that gives them a promotional product, such as a branded bag or mug.

Every marketing channel has its unique benefits, and one does not replace the other. That’s why it’s essential to understand how to capitalize on the unique characteristics of direct mail, marketing collateral, and other print forms. Need to make people feel unique and valued? Nothing does the job like something they can touch and feel.

 

5 Ways To Stand Out With Direct Mail in 2022

by Summer Gould

022 has started off very busy. The toughest part right now for direct mail is the paper shortage. Everyone is scrambling to get paper and in direct mail, no paper means no mail. The best way to combat that is to plan ahead and get your paper secured early. Once you have your paper, start planning your direct mail to stand out in the mail box.

Here are five ways to get your direct mail campaign to stand out and get noticed:

1. Use color envelopes: Color is inviting and not used often enough. Your envelope will be opened because it is unique. There are many standard colors available that do not drastically increase your costs. They have been easier to get lately as well with the paper shortage since most envelopes are printed on white stock. Keep in mind some colors are not USPS approved, such as red. When was the last time you had a color envelope in your mail box?

1. Use stamps: There is a stamp for each postage class, use them. Nonprofits are best at this. When they send out an appeal letter there is a stamp on the envelope. Your piece looks less like the other pieces in the mail box with permits or meters. Keep in mind that the presorted stamps do not come with fun image options. The look of the stamp is not as important as the fact that you are using a stamp.

1. Use larger pieces: You can use up to a 6.125×11.5″ postcard and still pay the letter size postage rate. A folded self-mailer can be 6×10.5″. Take advantage of that. Larger pieces are noticed. It also gives you more room for design and larger text for your copy. Just because you have more room does not mean you should write a book. Keep your copy concise and on point.

1. Use taglines: Add fun taglines to your envelopes, get your recipients excited about what they are going to find in the envelope. Using diagonal text, bright colors, or fun fonts. The more creative the better. Consider using a funny phrase that is in-line with your branding. People love to laugh!

1. Use targeting: Target your message to the individual. If you are having a sale on fishing lures make sure you target people who use lures. I would not be a good target, as I like to bait fish. Send me a targeted piece on bait for sale. The better targeted the message the more likely they are to respond. Not everyone on your list is a fit for every offer, so make sure that you send relevant offers to the right people.

Remember to change only one thing at a time so that when you are analyzing your results you will be able to see if the change you made has increased your response. It would be best to have a control group of what you always have done and then split off a segment to try the new piece with. This will give you the most accurate results.

Remember to send a pdf of your new design to your mail service provider so that they can make sure your new design is still USPS compliant. You don’t want to print your great new design only to find out your postage is more than double because you did not meet USPS regulations. Are you ready to get started?