Mailing

Are You Overspending on Bulk Mailing?

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com
overspending on Bulk mailing
12
Mar

Bulk mailing can be an inexpensive path to driving traffic to your local store or increasing your overall revenue. To ensure that you are not overspending on your bulk mailing campaign, we’ve prepared a list of cost-effective practices to lessen expenditure.

1. Understand the costs of bulk mailing.

Before engaging the service, it is wise to check with your service provider the necessary expenses to cover in sending out bulk mail campaigns. This will allow you to plan and prepare costs you are comfortable and able to spend.

2. Clean Your Mailing List.

Sanitise your list as frequent as you can. Make it a habit to check and remove bad addresses and duplicated recipients.

If you are sending mail to the incorrect address, or inexistent contacts make you waste money on postage and ultimately on your campaign. Periodically cleansing your mailing lists with duplicates, past customers and deceased recipients will lessen your bulk mailing costs and improve the return of your letterbox distribution efforts.

If you want to know more about Benefits of Bulk Mailing: Read Here

3. Plan Your Campaigns.

It easy to get lost in the process of creating content for your bulk mail campaign, often, the absence of proper planning and project time allocation will cause irreversible mistakes and money loss. Planning your content, design and distribution will help you minimise errors before printing and send- out. Unlike online campaigns, the error in print media will require higher costs in reproduction and correction alone.

4. Watch out for dimensional pricing.

Postage costs rely on size and weight content being mailed. Keep a list of dimensional pricing handy in your office or during pre-planning of material. Send a postcard instead of a letter. Opt for specially designed coupons to drive traffic to your store or get them to visit your website.

bulk mailing templates

5. Respect Your Recipients Option to Unsubscribe.

This is a way of telling them that you value their privacy and preferences. This is also a better way to trim down your list and save on unnecessary postage costs. Sending repeat mailing to recipients who will send them directly to trash is a total waste of your money.

6. Presort Your Mail Accordingly to Avail Special Discounts.

Direct mail providers normally presort mail to ensure faster and more efficient delivery. The local postal office appreciates less work forwarded to them and will offer you a discount in return. Presort by zip code or presort by distribution centres. There are many ways to ease out the process of bulk mailing and get better rates in return.

7. Stay within your postal services regulations.

Bulk mailing is an effective advertising strategy for any business. Be mindful of postal services rules and regulations to ensure fast and efficient service. It will be inconvenient to have everything ready for send-out only to find out that your chosen wrapping or envelope is too heavy for the standard rate. You may have gone too crafty that it affects the weight of the mail, and will require you to cover a more hefty postage fee or worst, you will be asked to recreate and repack, whereby you incur additional costs and charges, not to mention the time involved in ensuring your mailings are compliant to postal regulations.

A local service mailing provider like Direct Mail Solutions understands the prerequisites of postal services. Contracting them for your bulk mailing will significantly reduce the stress in understanding every regulation.

Printing

5 Amazing Benefits of Envelope Printing for Successful Business

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com
envelope printing for succesful business
10
Nov

You may not have given your business envelopes much thought before. Many businesses have long underestimated the positive benefit that a business can enjoy by using customised envelope printing. Envelope printing can enhance your professional image, and help you target offline customers in your local community.

Here are the top five benefits of envelope printing to improve your business success in today’s marketplace:

1. A Hidden promotional tool

The greatest benefit of business envelopes is that it acts as a hidden promotional tool. Your envelope can quickly convey its brand message, colour, logo, etc. This will help your brand stand out from other letters that your target audience receive.

2. Personalised Marketing

You can tailor your envelopes depending on whom you intend to reach. This could be potential or existing customers or another business you’re working in conjunction with. People are more inclined to open your envelope if there is something unique about it. We are flooded with dull white envelopes and marketing material in our letterboxes daily. Your recipients will feel a curiosity to open your letter that contains a unique logo, branding, and colours. A personalised envelope is a perfect way to promote your business in a simple and succinct manner.

3. Highly Cost-effective

Custom envelope printing is a cost-effective marketing tool you can use to get a response from your target market. We can run your campaign to target a specific geographical area or a specific customer demographic. What’s great about this method is that you can achieve a high recall rate by using professionally printed envelopes in a number of colour and printing options.

4. Also Targets offline customers

Currently, the letterbox marketing space is way less cluttered compared to digital marketing channels. The average Australian household receives around two to three pieces of unaddressed promotional items per week. Compared to the hundreds of electronic advertising messages you receive daily, customised envelope printing stands out by being tangible and convenient to use.

5. Improves Direct Mail efficiency

Aside from promotion, you can use them to improve the efficiency of your business. For instance, you can easily break up and organise your daily outgoing mail into convenient categories. This is based on the customised colour coding of your envelope printing, making the task of sending out envelopes a lot more simplified.

Businesses are often quick to assume that electronic mail is the best choice to reach potential and existing customers. However, with technology playing an ever-increasing role in society more and more people appreciate envelope printing as a form of physical marketing.
Direct Mail Solutions is a full-service printing and mailing company for all your envelope printing and mailing needs. We can come to you to discuss which design best suits your requirements.

Mailing

Can Direct Mail Marketing Really be An Effective Tool for Your Business?

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com
direct mail marketing for business
20
Aug

Well and truly before digital marketing came about, direct mail marketing was one of the most common ways to promote a business, product or service. This traditional marketing technique was effective in generating fast and targeted results. With its many benefits, direct mail marketing it still effective today, even in the digital age.

Here’s why direct mail marketing is still relevant and how you can use it to promote your business.

Direct Mail is, Direct; targeting the right audience, at the right time.

The greatest advantage of direct mail marketing is that it’s highly targeted to your business’ ideal demographic. It allows you to post flyers and other promotional materials directly to your customer’s front door through cost-effective letterbox distribution.

Direct mail marketing works best when a business has a clear indication of their demographics, including age and location. Additionally, they must have a good understanding of what suburbs are home to their ideal demographics, or what demographic makes up the majority of certain geographic areas. This information becomes even more clearer if you’re simply promoting a local business. Perhaps you’ve just opened up a store in the suburb, or you’re not generating as many customers as you’d like, This marketing lets people know that your business is close to them, which will encourage them to visit you.

Receiving promotional mail is even more effective nowadays, as it’s likely to stand out and grab the consumers attention. That’s because people generally receive less hard copy mail, so there’s less noise for the promotional mail to get lost in, especially if it’s unique and creative in design.

A highly targeted approach, combined with the advantage of standing out, makes direct mail marketing an effective tool for your business.

It has a Highly tangible advantage

Direct mail marketing has a particular advantage over its digital counterparts, and even more so in the digital age. Traditional styles of marketing incorporate the “good old days,” so why not use this to stand out amongst a predominantly digital crowd? Traditional marketing collateral is tangible, and engages more senses than digital marketing does. This simple advantage makes the  marketing messages, and the experience of consuming them, more memorable. You’re more likely to remember touching, holding and reading a psychical flyer than you are scrolling across a digital advertisement. Digital advertisements have more “digital noise” around them and only encourage you to use one of your five senses, which makes it easier to forget or to even ignore altogether.

Physical flyers and pamphlets can be put up on the fridge or left on the bench, allowing them to be a constant reminder of what they’re promoting. Additionally, tangible marketing collateral can appear more favourable to consumers. Consumers can appreciate the effort put into creating the material and targeting the message to them, specifically. It’s also a chance to make the material impressive, creative and unique.

There’s a reason that we haven’t changed everything to digital form. It’s the tangible advantage that carries more meaning and is more memorable.

It saves a lot on marketing costs

Compared to other tools and techniques, direct mail marketing is a very cost-effective method. Businesses can work within a predetermined budget and can monitor exact costs. Whatever marketing material you choose to print and mail, you’re usually given a range of options to suit your budget. Although it’s a low-cost method, direct mail marketing produces effective and measurable results. So, cost doesn’t compromise on quality.

Businesses don’t have to work against large budgets to promote their products or services.

Its Surprisingly easy to measure results

One of the most important aspects of marketing is measuring the success of each campaign. Measuring and analysing results allows you to make an informed judgement on how to approach marketing campaigns in the future.

Direct mail marketing is easy to track and allows to measure the success of the campaign efficiently. Depending on your business, and what you’re trying to promote, direct mail marketing should include some type of conversion tool. Conversion is the process of turning potential leads into paying customers. Marketing flyers should include things like order forms, applications, QR codes, vouchers and other incentives.

Even in the age of digital marketing, traditional marketing methods such as direct mail marketing are still highly beneficial and effective for promoting businesses.

At Direct Mail Solutions, we offer direct mail marketing services to drive new business, boost sales and nurture relationships with customers. We work with your business to tailor each campaign to your target market. Additionally, we take care of your printing and packaging requirements.

Outsourcing

not Hiring a Professional Printing Service? You’re Missing Out.

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com
professional printing service
16
Aug

Whether you’re running a small, medium or large business, you’re certain to come across printing requirements. Perhaps you make and sell products that require printing or perhaps you need to print flyers for marketing purposes or envelopes to send to your loyal customers. Whatever the printing job may be, it’s important to consider how to get it done. Should you try to DIY or should you save all the fuss and go straight to a professional printing service?

Here are some things to consider when making that choice and meeting your business’ printing requirements.

Cost-effectiveness

DIY is often known as the budget option, however, this isn’t always the case. Doing the printing yourself means that you’re responsible for purchasing all of the supplies and topping them up once they’ve run out. This includes paper, ink, toners, and labels, not to mention, the printer itself. The cost of the supplies can add up quite a bit, and you’ll notice that it’s more beneficial and cost-effective in the long run to go directly to a professional printing service. That’s because you’re only required to pay for what you need. Unless you’re exceptionally crafty and resourceful, it’s common to make some mistakes if you DIY. Not only does this waste time and effort, but it also wastes money and materials.

We often get asked, at what point is outsourcing the most cost-effective solution? Our answer is that most businesses find it far more cost-effective in the long run, especially if they have large volume requirements. Remember that, like all services, the more units you order, the less the cost per unit becomes.

Professional printing service doesn’t have to run your pocket dry – most also have affordable options to choose from. These affordable options are far better quality than using your own printer and budget supplies. Even with their cheaper options, professional printing service will always provide services superior to DIY methods.

Time saver

Simply put, outsourcing your printing services saves you effort. It saves you an immense amount of time and stress. You’re not expected to be a printing expert, so why force yourself to be? That’s what professional printing companies are for! Printing flyers and other products isn’t just a matter of pressing “print.” It includes setting up your printer (especially if you’ve purchased a new one), learning the procedures and knowing how to tackle any issues you may come across.

Instead, you should put your effort into what really matters to you – your job and the smooth running of your business. Giving you one less thing to worry about increases your business’ efficiency and productivity. Not to mention that an increase in productivity gives your business monetary gain.

Experience and professionalism

Often, it doesn’t take much to notice the difference between a professional job and a DIY attempt. When outsourcing with a professional printing service, you’re guaranteed to get high-quality results every time. Outsourcing your business’ printing jobs is an investment. That is, you’re investing in quality to gain the best results and return on value, and often, this is in the form of customers.

Outsourcing means that you have a dedicated team of experts to work on your printing jobs. It also means that you’re able to work with the same team each time you return to do more printing. This ensures consistency in both the quality and the visuals of the work. This is especially important as consistency strengthens your brand identity and awareness.

Here are 5 more reasons why Hiring Professional Printing Service is a smart idea.

If you decide to outsource with a professional printing company, you’re guaranteed to get only the best services. If you’re not hiring a professional printing service, then you’re missing out on the professionalism and high-quality services that it can offer you.

At Direct Mail Solutions, we offer full professional solutions including printing, copying and mail distribution services. Our business and envelop printing services offer your business a cost-effective and high-quality solution. We collaborate with you to ensure we meet your specific printing requirements, including deadlines and budget.

Outsourcing

Invoice Mailing: Why You Should Outsource?

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com
invoice mailing
26
Jan

How do you increase your bottom line, while also improving the products and services of your business? While outsourcing is not necessarily the perfect solution for every business, we know all of our clients save time and money by outsourcing their invoice mailing. In this week’s blog, we discuss the benefits of outsourcing your invoice mailing. 

You’re putting it in the hands of specialists 

When you outsource your invoice mailing, you’re giving it to a team that specialises in the task at hand. This means you can trust them to deliver an efficient and high-quality job. 

You can save money  

In most situations, outsourcing your needs to a business that orders in bulk and has a streamlined system and process can save you money. While you might think it can cost more, as earlier mentioned, businesses that specialise in invoice mailing are more likely to deliver you the work in a more efficient manner.  

Eliminate a task from your plate – and focus on what you do best 

By outsourcing a company to take care of your invoice mailing, you can devote your time to the more high-pressing demands of your business. So if you’re feeling overwhelming with tasks, outsourcing is a fantastic way to lessen your load. 

Your employees can focus on other tasks too 

Not only does outsourcing allow you to focus on other tasks, it does the same for your employees, as well.  

Blog: Invoice Mailing: Why You Should Outsource?

At Direct Mail Solutions, we have a range of printing options for your invoice mailing needs. We implement quality assurance and verification measures at every stage, ensuring that all potential errors are identified and any risk to your billing is eliminated.  

Mailing

Four Benefits of Pamphlets 

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com
21
Nov

Despite living in the digital age, traditional marketing techniques, such as pamphlets, are still incredibly effective in connecting with your message and converting this to sales. In this week’s blog, we share four benefits of pamphlets for your business.  

1) Pamphlets connect with your target audience 

Figuring out the best way to reach and connect with your target market is a key consideration for any business. A lot of the time, resources are wasted in trying to achieve this goal. However, the benefit of pamphlets is that they provide an opportunity to connect directly with your target market. Ensuring that your potential customer reads the pamphlet once it lands in their hands rests in how well-designed and appealing your pamphlet is. 

2) Pamphlets are cost-effective 

In comparison to other marketing efforts, pamphlets are significantly cheaper to produce and distribute via a letterbox distribution campaign. The ability to truly reach a large number of people with pamphlets without spending too much money is a definite advantage. 

3) The creativity is all yours 

You can be as artistic and fun as you want with pamphlets. From the design to the message to the layout, the creative possibilities are endless. Make sure your pamphlet is exciting yet refined. Don’t overload your potential client with a sea of information. Always be selective to ensure the main message is seen. 

4) Pamphlets can convey a lot of information 

The final benefit of pamphlets is that they can communicate a wide range of information. You also can and should use images to visually convey your message. Unlike other forms of advertisements, such as posters or billboards, which require someone to stop and absorb the message, pamphlets allow your audience time to read over the information.  

Mailing

Great Reasons To Outsource Mail Distribution

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com
Mail house
31
Aug

Are you a small or medium business who currently managed their own letterbox distribution requirements? Whilst keeping mail distribution in-house is often necessary for start-ups, it makes little financial or practical sense for an established business. This week, we take a look at a few key reasons why it’s better to outsource your mail distribution and fulfilment requirements.

Focus on your core competencies

When you outsource your mail distribution and fulfilment needs, you no longer have to waste time and money managing logistics and can instead focus on growing your business and doing what you do best.

Access to the latest technology

Outsourcing your mail distribution requirements to a professional mail house also means that you no longer have to make do with the limited resources you have in-house. Most mail houses will be able to offer you technologically advanced mail marketing solutions which will augment your marketing efforts and ultimately help you run your campaign more effectively.

Cost effective

Whilst managing your requirements in-house might seem like a cost effective solution, it actually works out to be more expensive than outsourcing. Factors like storage space, moving equipment, utilities, packing suppliers, racking, maintenance, security and insurance can become quite costly if you’re a small or medium sized business. A professional mail distribution house on the other hand is able to distribute these types of costs across multiple clients, to keep costs low for you.

Fully scalable

A mail distribution house offers services which are totally scalable, so you only ever have to pay for the services you need. This means fulfilment expenses are predictable and can be scaled up or down depending on your business requirements.

More efficient storage and distribution

If you’re not a mailing house, wasting valuable office space on mail distribution and fulfilment is a waste of space you could otherwise be using for productivity purposes. Distribution is also more time consuming and expensive if you do it in-house, as most SME’s aren’t partnered with logistics companies in the way that professional mail houses are.

Direct Mail Solutions are an established mailing house that can seamlessly manage your mail distribution and fulfilment requirements.

Design

7 Leaflet Design and Copy Tips to Ensure a Good ROI

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com
leaflet delivery
29
Jun

Although they might seem like one in the same, there is a difference between good leaflet design, and leaflet design that sells products or services. Presenting your target audience with the right message in the right format is a subtle art, but one which can be learnt. This week, we take a look at a few tried and true layout, design, and content techniques which can encourage customers to buy from your business.

  1. Choose pictures with people in them

More specifically, choose images that represent your target audience, in situations that they can relate to.

  1. Offer something free

A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that people were more likely to spend money on something when given a free material gift (even one that had nothing to do with the product or service being offered)

  1. Anthropomorphise your product

The more human a product is, the more likely consumers are to feel connected to it. Turning your product into a cute cartoon enables people to project thoughts and emotions onto the object, and empathise with it.

  1. Imply scarcity

Fear of missing out (FOMO) drives sales as consumers often equate scarcity with value and popularity. Putting a time limit on your offer or implying you have limited stock is a great way to do this and provoke immediate action as consumers also don’t like the prospect of a choice being taken away from them.

  1. Provide statistics

Use peer pressure to convince your target audience that what you are offering is desirable. Phrases like ‘9 out of 10 people prefer…’ encourage purchases as consumers perceive the product or service to already have the stamp of approval from their peers.

  1. Invest in quality printing and design materials

Widespread access to printing and computer design technology means it’s possible for every business to print marketing materials, but the way to stand out is by spending a little extra on quality design, thicker paper, and high quality colour printing.

  1. Motivate, don’t close

Don’t pressure your target audience into making a sale. Instead, use your leaflet to garner interest and intrigue that results in them following up by contacting your business or going to your website. Instead of issuing orders (i.e. buy this), invite curiosity (i.e. learn more about this).

Direct Mail Solutions offer leaflet delivery services for Melbourne businesses.

Mailing

Email vs. Direct Mail

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com
09
Nov

One of the most controversial subjects in modern marketing is whether email or direct mail is the best way to reach target audiences. Although colloquially, most people assume that digitisation has taken over and email is king, statistics suggest that although EDM is a popular medium, it doesn’t have the kind of traction that a direct mail campaign can produce. This week, we weigh up the relative pros and cons of each medium.

Price

One of the key advantages that email has over direct mail is that it costs next to nothing to design and send. Marketers can send out millions of emails at a time and even if the response rate is abysmal, the ROI is still economically justifiable due to the negligible costs involved. By contrast, it costs money to develop, print and post direct mail, so marketers need to have an iron clad mailing list to ensure a good rate of return.

Speed

This is another area where email trumps direct mail, as it not only takes no time at all to create an EDM and send it off, but the recipient gets the email instantly and can respond within minutes. This agility makes email the perfect medium for market testing. By contrast, direct mail takes time to design, print, and mail, so there is no immediate way of testing out material.

Environment

The email environment is overcrowded with spam, and recipients are often so overwhelmed by the amount of email marketing in their inbox that they’ll nix anything that looks remotely like advertising without giving it a second thought. Direct mail on the other hand, is much more likely to be read as it comes in smaller volumes, and it’s immediacy prompts the recipient to glance over it, if only whilst sifting through the mail on the way from the post box to the front door.

Creative potential

Email marketing doesn’t give you a lot of wiggle room in terms of creativity. A catchy image and a short, concise message is about all you can do before the instantaneous accessibility of the EDM wears thin and the reader moves your email into the trash bin. Direct mail on the other hand is a medium where you can flex your creative muscles in terms of colour, images, texture and content. This medium is ideal if you want to explain different aspects of your business to the reader as they are more likely to read through the content.

Direct Mail Solutions is an established direct mail marketing solutions provider based in Melbourne.

Mailing

3 Key Advantages of Bulk Mailing Services

Posted on by allisterfreeman@gmail.com

Since the 1970’s, bulk mailing has been a cost effective and efficient way for businesses to engage with their target market. In 2016, bulk mailing remains a staple mass marketing solution for small and medium businesses and a key tool in cross channel marketing campaigns. If you’re a business who needs to mail out several hundred pieces of mail a few times a year, or are looking to undertake a mass mailing campaign for a one off event, then it’s well worth considering bulk mail services. In this article, we examine the three key advantages of bulk mailing.

Cost effective

Bulk Mailing ServicesFor a small or medium business, the process of designing, printing, packing and posting mail can become quite costly as their numbers are not likely to be high enough or consistent enough to warrant wholesale purchasing. Using bulk mail services can help SME’s save significant amounts of money as mail houses provide wholesale mailing prices in packages which can be tailored to suit a particular budget.

Time saving

Choosing to connect with your client base through bulk mailing means you can minimise the amount of time spent managing the logistics of your advertising and spend more time growing your business. Companies like DMS provide turnkey bulk mailing solutions which encompasses printing, packing, and posting, leaving you free to dedicate yourself to improving your business and confident that your promotional material is reaching a large slice of your target audience.

Target market reach

Using bulk mailing services is a simple, logical way to reach your target audience. Provided you have the right database to work from, a bulk mail marketing campaign is the most effective way to advertise to a large audience who is interested in your services. Sending addressed letters is a highly effective way of informing your target audience about your business and it has a much higher rate of receptivity when compared to other mass marketing solutions like television and radio. Bulk mail can be used to attract both new and existing customers and is a proven way to build up and maintain a strong customer base.

Direct Mail Solutions offers quality bulk mail services in Melbourne and are proud to provide turnkey marketing solutions to small and medium businesses.