What’s the Key to Staying Ahead of Direct Mail Trends?
Reverse-Engineer Your Marketing Process

Mailers are facing greater challenges than ever with rising costs, environmental concerns, privacy issues, and postal regulations.  But don’t despair.  There are unprecedented opportunities for smart marketers who stay ahead of the direct mail curve.

The key is to reverse-engineer your marketing process.

How do you start planning a campaign?  If you’re like many of us, maybe you saved an eye-catching mailing piece you received at home, and you think a similar format might be a good idea.  You meet with a graphic designer and copywriter and start planning your new mailing campaign.  Lots of time is spent haggling over the message and tweaking the design.  Then you contact your printer to get a quote.  Those days are over.

Now you need to reverse the process.  Start at the end of the process.  Consult with current and new vendors who help you execute your campaigns—your list providers, your printers, your lettershops, your postal service representative.

Explain your goals and objectives to them.  Make them a partner in your campaign development.  Solicit their ideas and suggestions for new and economic formats and technical specifications that can save you money and improve your results. 

• Consult with your mailing list providers about the latest segmentation strategies for targeting and personalizing mailings.
• Get recommendations from printers who can offer the latest in digital variable data printing that can dramatically increase results.
• Ask your lettershop about data hygiene processes and postal regulations that will lower your costs.
• Meet regularly with your postal representative to plan for upcoming changes in requirements.

Search for vendors who can offer creative and cost-effective solutions that make use of the latest technology in mailing list data, digital printing, personalization, and data hygiene.  Although there are some advantages to working with local vendors, most of the information and data for a marketing campaign is transmitted digitally, so you can work with vendors located anywhere. 

Include your graphic designer and copywriter in your discussions, especially with printers.  Rather than hinder creativity, these meetings will spark it.

By reverse-engineering your marketing process, you will stay on top of the direct mail trends that can make your campaigns more effective.  Many new trends, particularly in direct mail technology, can give you a toolbox to lower costs AND increase response.  That is a winning combination to increase your ROI.

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