Tag Archive for: direct mail

Digital and Print Advertising: What Works & What Doesn’t 

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Print and digital advertising can help make or break a business. When talking with digital marketers, you might hear that digital is superior to print. Similarly, some printing professionals may sing print’s praises and overlook the benefits of digital advertising. The truth is that most companies benefit from utilizing a blend of both. Developing advertising strategies that draw on both print and digital advertising’s strengths give you a better chance of developing brand awareness, tapping into new markets, and boosting your sales.

If you’re new to print and digital advertising, consider the following helpful tips from the printing pros at Pel Hughes. 

Benefits of Digital Advertising

As more people join social media and surf the web, utilizing digital advertising is a great way to raise awareness for your brand and increase your customer base. Digital advertising offers some unique advantages when compared to print. For example, advertising with social media, e-mail campaigns, and paid search ads can be very cost-effective. Another great benefit of digital advertising is the metrics you can use to understand your digital campaign’s performance. Metrics from Google Ad Words, Facebook Insights, and data collected from your website can tell you what search terms were used to land on your digital properties, the general location of your visitors, and even demographic information such as age and gender. These readily-available metrics can help you decipher what works and what doesn’t with your messaging. 

If a good portion of your sales come from your website, digital advertising can help you reach customers throughout the United States and even the world. Facebook’s advertising platform as well as Google Ad Words can make it easy to target consumers most likely to be attracted to your brand or services. 

Benefits of Print Advertising

Like digital, print offers its own set of unique benefits. One of the biggest selling points with print advertising is the fact that most people find print more trustworthy than digital. People from all walks of life have a knee-jerk reaction to trust brands who use print advertising methods like catalogues and direct mail. Part of the reason for this is the “nostalgia factor”. A piece of personalized direct mail seems to evoke an emotional response that harkens back to a simpler time. As we become increasingly dependent on technology to perform daily tasks and our work, a piece of personalized mail from your business reminds us of a time when face-to-face interaction and in-person customer service was the driving force behind our buying decisions. 

If you operate a service-based enterprise or do most of your business in a brick-and-mortar operation, print advertising can help you reach out to your local community. A direct mail campaign can send postcards, coupons, circulars, and catalogues to specific zip codes in your area. This highly effective form of advertising is great for local-oriented businesses.

How to Blend Print and Digital Advertising to Meet Your Needs

In the battle of digital vs print, there isn’t a clear winner. What actually works is a combination of both rather than choosing one over the other. For instance, utilizing Facebook advertising, e-mail campaigns, and direct mail could help you expand your reach and develop brand recognition. Advertising is rarely a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Business owners have to consider their industry and method of operations before embarking on any advertising campaign. We encourage businesses to consult with experts to develop a customized solution to meet their needs. 

The pros at Pel Hughes specialize in print advertising. We utilize the latest technology in campaign automation and database management to develop stunning print campaigns for businesses throughout the United States. Give our team a call at (504) 486-8646 to request a quote. 

Variable Data Printing Takes Direct Mail Marketing to the Next Level 

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Did you know that people have a stronger urge to take action with direct mail than they do with digital advertising? According to research conducted by the USPS, it’s true. There is clear data to demonstrate that people will respond to printed marketing materials more favorably than they would digital. While the numbers back up the notion that direct mail is still a powerhouse when it comes to driving sales, bear in mind that not all direct mail is created equal. One way you can make your direct mail more effective is to utilize variable data printing.  

What is variable data printing, exactly? 

Variable data printing is a method of digital printing that allows for interchangeable text without interrupting the printing process. This technology even makes it possible to utilize different graphics from piece to piece. 

 Variable data printing (VDP) technology is what makes personalizing direct mail a reality. In fact, you have probably had pieces delivered to you that utilized this VDP. With VDP, you can personalize pieces to address recipients by name on envelopes and on the salutations of letters.  

What are the benefits of variable data printing? 

One way that VDP is advantageous for your direct mail campaigns is the fact that they tend to see higher response rates. Conventional direct mail that doesn’t utilize VDP typically sees a 1% response rate. Adding VDP to the mix could easily double your response rate.  

Not only could using VDP double your response rate, it could save you money by making it possible to deploy smaller campaigns. If you know your response rate will be higher, you could downsize your campaign and still see a higher ROI. The cost savings of a smaller response rate could translate to you having the budget to use high quality graphics and paper. Investing in the quality of your direct mail can help you target niche markets such as consumers who prefer luxury products or eco-conscious buyers.  

Who benefits from VDP? 

VDP could benefit any brand but certain types of brands may find more value by implementing variable data printing. For example, brands selling niche products or catering to a specific consumer group tend to see great results with VDP. Companies selling services or products with high margins typically see better results with direct mail than businesses like restaurants or dry cleaners. This technology also helps enterprises attract new customers by boosting brand awareness.  

The best way to determine which form(s) of marketing and advertising are right for you is to devote time to research and speak with printing professionals about your budget, goals, and needs.  

Our team at Pel Hughes is happy to help you navigate your print marketing options. Our family-owned printing company serves businesses and non-profits of all sizes throughout the United States. We provide in-house graphic design, world class printing technology, database management, and campaign automation to help you boost your sales and develop a brand with staying power.  

Give our team of experts a call at (504) 486-8646 to request a quote.  

Advanced Printing Techniques: Spot UV and Raised Varnish 

Pel Hughes is one of the country’s leading print companies. Serving businesses in a variety of industries—including those who work directly with consumers and B2B enterprises, we offer advanced printing methods that can produce stunning effects. Two advanced printing techniques you should know about are spot UV and raised varnish. These printing methods produce striking materials that evoke the senses. Following is helpful information about both.  

Spot UV 

Spot UV is a printing technique that embellishes materials. You’ve likely seen this effect before on event invitations and business cards. This technique produces a lustrous effect with a raised finish. While spot UV could be applied all over, it is best used for specific elements of a design. This embellishment can produce a striking visual effect by applying this treatment to specific areas such as logos and important areas of text. The name of this technique comes from the drying process. UV exposure is used to cure the varnish, giving it a noticeable sheen.  

Raised Varnish 

Like spot UV, raised varnish adds striking elements to a printed piece. It can be used in conjunction with spot UV, too. What makes raised varnish special is the fact that it adds a noticeable texture to printed materials. For example, raised varnish can be used on a business card to draw attention to a company’s name. When combined with spot UV, the area treated is not only lustrous, it provides a textural dynamic that evokes the sense of touch. Combining these two powerful embellishments adds depth to your materials’ designs.  

The Five Senses and Advanced Printing Techniques 

When it comes to building your brand and selling your product(s), striking materials make for great sales tools. Not only can properly-executed print help facilitate in-person sales, it can help drive engagement with your brand when you can’t sell a product. For instance, a beautiful business card with a raised varnish and/or spot UV can make a lasting impression on a potential customer or client. 

 If your business card stands out from your competition, you can increase the likelihood of your brand’s products or services being used. One way you can stand out from the crowd is to deploy effective sensory marketing tactics. Sensory marketing refers to evoking as much of the five sense as possible with your consumer experience and your advertising. There exists compelling research to support the effectiveness of sensory marketing as numerous researchers have found that non-conscious stimuli that we can touch, taste, smell, see, and hear drives our purchasing decisions and brand loyalty.  

Something as simple as a raised logo on your business card or company stationary could produce a lasting positive impression on others. These thoughtful little details that entice our eyes and our touch could help you develop positive associations with your brand.  

If you’re looking to take your print materials to the next level with Spot UV and raised varnishes, the experts at Pel-Hughes are here to help. We offer state-of-the-art printing services, in-house fulfillment, and a team of dedicated graphic designers to help you develop stunning print pieces like direct mail, catalogues, business cards, letterheads, and more. Give us a call at (504) 486-8646 to learn more.  

A Quick Guide to Understanding Printing Lingo 

Every industry has its own vernacular and the printing industry is no different. For customers, however, these words may be unfamiliar. To help, our team has compiled a handy guide to help you learn more about common lingo you might hear among print professionals. Understanding this terminology can help you learn more about the wide range of services that Pel Hughes has to offer.

Digital Printing

In the past, printers relied on screens and plates to produce materials. Today, however, printers can print items from digital files. Digital is highly efficient but there are still instances where traditional print methods are necessary. 

CMYK, RGB, and Pantone

Choosing color is one of the most important aspects in branding and advertising. CMYK and RGB are color systems—each with different purposes. Pantone is not exactly a color system; it’s a color library with about 1800 variations. 

Unfortunately, color doesn’t translate the same across different mediums. For example, RBG (which stands for red, blue, and green) is used to convey color on computer monitors and device screens while CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) is a color system utilized in printing. 

These different color systems can make printing from digital artwork a little tricky. When digital logos, ads, and other graphics are generated it is important that they are compatible with CMYK to ensure that your materials match your digital ones once they’re printed on paper. Knowing your pantone color numbers can be of great help to your graphic design team and the printing professionals you work with, too.

Weight

In the print world, “weight” refers to the thickness of the paper you’re using. Thicker paper is more substantial, making it ideal for business cards and brochures. Lower weight is ideal for corporate letterheads. 

Variable Data 

Variable data makes it possible to print materials with interchangeable elements without stopping the print process. A great example of variable data is printing envelopes, personalized direct mail, or letters with different addresses or names. 

2Up

This term refers to the number of prints on a piece of paper. Utilizing as much space on a piece of paper as possible saves money and reduces waste. 2UP is particularly useful for producing post cards, packaging, and business cards.

Bleed

Bleed entails a print extending beyond its cut lines. For instance, the term “full bleed” involves printing beyond paper’s cut lines to avoid unwanted margins around an image or background color. When a full bleed is needed, printers will have to use larger paper to avoid unwanted breaks in color around an image’s borders. 

It’s important to bring up bleed with your graphic designers so that they can accommodate your needs when developing your images in Photoshop, InDesign, and other software programs. 

The pros at Pel Hughes utilize the latest technology to help you develop stunning print campaigns. We offer expert assistance with direct mail, banners, signage, business cards, and more. Our team can help you develop cross channel marketing that will set your enterprise apart from the crowd, too. 

We have worked with businesses and organizations in diverse industries throughout the United States. Give Pel Hughes a call today at (504) 486-8646 to learn more about our services. 

Should You Combine Print Advertising with Digital? 

Like countless other businesses, you might be devoting all your advertising and marketing efforts to digital channels. While digital advertising is generally good for business, if you’re relying solely on digital, you might want to look into print advertising. According to a study conducted by Marketing Sherpa, print is considered the most trustworthy form of advertising among 82% of respondents. 

The trick to maximizing the ROI on print advertising is to select the most effective forms of advertising. It’s clear that print news is on the decline so dedicating your advertising budget to newspapers likely won’t yield the best bang for your buck. Here we will break down some of the best ways to utilize print advertising. 

Magazines

While the popularity of newspaper advertising is dwindling, magazine advertising is still considered trustworthy by consumers and effective by seasoned advertising professionals. While you may not be able to afford a two-page spread in Better Homes and Gardens, you could likely afford an advertising spot in a local magazine. In fact, the number of magazines in circulation tailored to locals might surprise you. We recommend contacting regional publishers and trade magazines to inquire about their advertising prices. 

Pel Hughes boasts an in-house graphic design team that can help you develop polished and beautiful print ads. 

Direct Mail

If you’re looking for an effective form of print advertising that won’t break the bank, we recommend researching direct mail. This form of advertising has higher conversion rates than social media and e-mail marketing. Moreover, personalized direct mail is a hit among all age groups. Viewed as a nostalgic and trustworthy form of advertising, a direct mail campaign is a great way to get locals interested in your business—especially when your campaign includes incentives like discounts and promotional codes. 

A great direct mail campaign merges your digital presence with your brick-and-mortar one. We recommend adding your social media handles and website URL to your direct mail’s copy. It’s especially helpful when your promotional codes and discounts are accepted in-person and online. 

Our team of graphic designers and printing pros can help you execute effective and well-received direct mail. We can also help you manage your mailing lists, too. 

Door Hangers

Another cost-effective form of print advertising is launching a door hanger campaign. Door hangers are less likely to be discarded before reading. These simple pieces grab attention because of where they are placed. They’re also cost-effective as postage is not necessary. Door hangers, like direct mail, can easily help connect potential customers with your digital channels by placing website URLs and social media handles in their copy. 

The pros at Pel Hughes can help you target specific neighborhoods and develop custom door hangers in line with your brand’s messaging and imagery. 

Local magazines, direct mail, and door hangers can help you target your ideal customer. From food and retail to service-based businesses, these forms of print advertising are suitable for an array of industries and the nonprofit sector. 

If you are new to print advertising, give Pel Hughes a call at (504) 486-8646. Our woman-owned enterprise works with businesses of all sizes throughout the United States.  

2021 Marketing Trends: Direct Mail Retargeting

 

Proprietary technology is making it easier to merge digital marketing with print. These advancements have made it possible to generate personalized direct mail within hours of a potential customer’s visit to your website, too. This type of marketing, known as direct mail retargeting, is one of the hottest trends emerging in 2021.

Businesses of all kinds are already utilizing direct mail retargeting. In fact, giants like Wells Fargo, Ashley HomeStore, GEICO, and Talbots have been implementing direct mail retargeting into their marketing initiatives. The good news is that these companies’ direct mail retargeting is fully compliant with privacy laws, too. 

If the concept of direct mail retargeting is new to you, our team at Pel Hughes has compiled some helpful information to help you determine if this type of marketing is something you should pursue. 

Direct Mail Retargeting: The Basics

You might already be utilizing retargeting through e-mail. Many businesses send personalized e-mails if a shopper abandons a purchase after placing goods in their digital shopping cart. Direct mail takes this principle a step further by sending personalized print materials to a shopper’s home. 

Personalized direct mail can be generated in a matter of hours after a potential customer places items in their cart but does not follow through on their purchase. This mail can include incentives like discounts or promotional codes to encourage a sale as well. 

The Case for Direct Mail

While many businesses are digitally-forward with their marketing, there is still a real need to engage in print from time-to-time. Print, particularly direct mail, offers high conversion rates and resonates well with customers across many demographics. 

To illustrate the effectiveness of print advertising, it’s important for business owners and decision makers to know that direct mail is the leading martech stack offering high YOY growth. The second martech stack is data, which is something that is necessary to produce an effective direct mail retargeting campaign. Direct mail when coupled with reliable data can lead to increased conversions, brand recognition, and customer loyalty. 

Direct mail alone sees higher ROI than e-mail marketing and social media advertising. It helps legitimize your business, too by giving your brand a real-life presence in a potential customer’s mailbox. 

If direct mail seems passé, consider the following statistics:

  • Over 50% of consumers feel that direct mail is a trustworthy method of advertising
  • More than 80% of direct mail is opened while about 30% of e-mail advertising is opened
  • Direct mail’s ROI hovers between 18% and 20% while social media and e-mail marketing sees an ROI between 1% and 3%

Direct mail is powerful—especially when it is properly executed. A good piece of direct mail has compelling copy, crisp design, and quality stock. If you need help harnessing the power of a direct mail, give the experts at Pel Hughes a call at (504) 486-8646. We provide in-house printing and graphic design. We also offer database management to help you keep track of your customers and new leads. 

3 Ways to Effectively Track Your Print Marketing Campaign

Whether it’s digital or in print, your marketing campaign is only as successful as the metrics that generated from your strategy. One of the reasons that digital marketing has become so effective is due to the large amount of tracking points that can be collected. Unfortunately, many marketing teams believe that tracking can only be done with digital campaigns. However, when used correctly, tracking is just as important (if not more) for print marketing campaigns. 

Tracking print marketing campaigns can help you determine if your marketing dollars are resulting in leads and eventual revenue, as well as what specific parts of your marketing are responsible for those leads. Below are three ways that your business can start to effectively track your print marketing campaign.  

 

  • Vanity URL’s

 

Most print material these days comes with a regular web address. And for good reason. It’s a good way to connect the consumer that views your print materials with your online presence. However, it’s virtually impossible to determine which leads are attributed to the consumer going to your webpage based on your print material, or if they found another way there. A vanity URL solves this problem. 

A vanity URL is short, easy to remember, and most importantly, it’s unique. For example, let’s say you run plumbing company. Instead of printing your standard http://www.this ismyplumbingcompany.com web address, you add a simple URL such as ourplumbing.com. You then redirect that to the plumbing page on your website. From there, it’s simple to track which visitors are arriving from the vanity URL and how well the print material is generating leads.

 

  • Unique QR Codes 

 

Another effective way to track your print marketing campaign is to make your materials digitally interactive. By allowing your audience to be interactive with your print piece, you can call users to take action that signals they’ve viewed your printed material. A great way to do this is through the use of unique QR codes. 

By adding a unique QR code that takes users to a specific website or trigger a download of an app, you can use that interactive feature to measure overall engagement. Once you track and measure the data from this engagement over time, you can then tailor your print marketing materials to what is most effective for your audience. 

 

  • Human Dialogue 

 

Although it may not be as modern as QR codes or as fancy as vanity URL’s relying on what your audience tells you is a tried-and-true method for tracking your print marketing campaigns. It’s simple: ask your audience how they heard about you, with “printed materials” as one of the options. This can be done as part of a form when they are checking out at your website, or even as part of a more formal survey that is sent out after they make a purchase. 

Unfortunately, you likely won’t get extremely comprehensive results using this method. But collectively, this will help you determine the proportional impact each of your strategies has on bringing new people to your business. These questions will also help in validating more qualitative ROI results, and add a valuable additional method for obtaining useful information for your marketing team. 

Employing these strategies will help your business understand whether your printed materials are effectively reaching your audience. And perhaps more importantly, they will help to create and launch better marketing efforts in the future.

Track and Measure Your Direct Mail Efforts

Direct mail marketing continues to be one of the most effective tools for reaching consumers and bringing them to action. In fact, a recent study by Temple University shows that direct mail is outperforming digital ads in eight out of nine categories, and direct mail marketing holds consumer attention longer and has a more significant impact on consumer purchase decisions.

However, unless the results of any direct mail campaign are measured and tracked, it’s virtually impossible to determine how well your strategies are working. In this article we discuss how you should be including measurement components into your marketing strategy, and how you can track data to ensure you are maximizing the benefits associated with direct mail. 

Personalized URLs

Direct mail provides a great opportunity for consumers to interact with a tangible object, then translate their interest in your product to an online space. Marketers can measure results from trackable URLs or QR codes placed on a piece of direct mail. 

You can even go further than a standard URL and create a personalized URL (PURL) dedicated solely to your direct mail campaign. Rather than printing your corporate website URL on the direct mail piece, use a PURL that will only be promoted to the people receiving the direct mailer. That PURL may simply serve as a redirect to your website once it’s entered, or it may point to a landing page that is embedded into one of your site’s pages.

The data that is produced from these mechanisms can then be categorized, and overtime you will have a substantial consumer database upon which to make more informed decisions. 

Google Analytics to Benchmark Direct Traffic

Although tactics such as a PURL may help you measure the success of a direct mail campaign, eventually these measurements pile up and is worthless unless your tracking data overtime. By tracking data, you can set up objective key performance indicators, allowing you to tailor your campaigns accordingly. 

One of the best ways to do this is with Google Analytics. Although it may not seem like the natural match for direct mail, when you combine the powerful tracking abilities of Google Analytics with the data produced by your PURL or personalized QR codes, you have a extremely useful tracking machine. 

Google Analytics will help you track how many of your targeted consumers used the PURL from your direct mail piece to visit your website. You can even track your campaign’s response rate and conversion rate online using the conversion tracking feature of Google Analytics.

Just Ask

Although it may be overlooked when we’re talking about PURL’s or Google Analytics, it’s important to remember that the human connection is invaluable in marketing. Simple tools such as contact forms or quick surveys can be extremely helpful in adding to how you measure and track success of your direct mail campaign. 

For example, in the contact form on your website, add a question that asks the consumer how they heard about you. Feedback from questions like this can then be compiled and tracked to add yet another tool that allows you to measure the success of your marketing.  

Direct mail marketing is still one of the most useful and successful methods of reaching a large and targeted audience. By adding tactics such as PURL’s, contact forms and Google Analytics, your company can better understand the strengths of your mailing campaign, and use data to create a stronger marketing strategy moving forward.

Integrate Your Direct Mail and Social Media Efforts

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There is no doubt that social networks are continuing to grow in popularity among all age groups. Recent statistics from Pew Internet & American Life Project indicated that 65% of online adults use social networking sites.  Marketers should continue to devote resources into using that channel to reach customers and prospects. However, this can also create an opportunity for your mail and print channels.

Direct mail and social networking efforts can both be improved when they are integrated together. Here are 5 ideas to make that integration happen:

Put the Social Media Badge on your Direct Mailer
Alright, this one is probably the easiest and most obvious of the bunch. If you’ve invested the time in creating and managing social media profiles for your company, you need to make sure that people know about them. Sure, some might find about them via links that you’ve added to your corporate website or via their own searches.

But to ensure that everyone knows, try adding the “badge” of social media icons to your direct mail pieces.

Simply seeing the “Facebook” or “Twitter” logo on your postcard may help your target audience become aware that your company is sharing information via those channels too.

Post Links to Your Landing Page on Social Media Sites
Let’s say that you’ve created a landing page that is filled with compelling information and a form that asks the perfect amount of questions. Will people only get to that page if they receive a direct mailer that contains a personalized URL?

Give this a try – in addition to the personalized landing pages, create versions that will be available to the general public. Then, post links to the general version of the landing page on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites that your audience uses.

Throughout the campaign, measure how people are getting to your page. Is it via the PURL on the direct mailer? Or via Twitter or Facebook? These types of reports may help you to better invest your resources in future campaigns when it comes to segments of your audience.

Make the Mailer Interactive with a QR Code
Companies of all sizes and varieties are creating videos with their Flip cameras and smart phones and uploading them to YouTube. Those videos can certainly help to spread your company’s message and to increase your SEO efforts.

But online video can also be re-purposed to make a direct mail piece interactive.

Simply create a QR Code that points directly to the YouTube video or to a mobile-optimized site that provides a link to the video. Place the QR Code on the direct mailer with a call-to-action, and then watch how your growing mobile audience responds.

Enable Landing Page Visitors to Easily Share the Link with Others
This might be the one idea where you can truly start to see growth in the overall success of your campaigns. When someone visits your landing page, make it easy for them to share a link to your content on their social media profiles.

This could be via a simple “Tweet This” button for Twitter, a “Like” button for Facebook, or some other sort of social media plug-in.

If your content is truly helpful and you make it easy for people to share it, your audience will grow with the help of others.

Drive People to Your Social Media Sites from the Thank You page
Let’s say that someone responds to the call-to-action on your direct mailer, types in their PURL, and fills out your response form. What do you then? Do you simply say Thank You?

Well, you could do that and then follow-up with them later. Or, you could try to further the engagement at that moment.

Try integrating your social media profiles into your Thank You page. This could mean simply putting icons that link to your social media pages. It could also mean embedding a YouTube video onto the page as well. Since the person has already shown interest in your company, perhaps they’d be more than willing to take a few minutes and learn a bit more about who you are and what you can do for them.

These are just a few ideas for integrating direct mail with social media. I hope that they help improve the success of your marketing and educational efforts.

3 Ways to Utilize Direct Mail

We all recognize that companies no longer rely solely on direct mail and print to try to reach their customers and prospects. But as long as it remains an effective channel, businesses will use it.

Here are three ways that you can use effective direct mail efforts for your business:

Personalization and Segmentation: Data was meant to do more than simply be imported and exported. Find creative ways to segment lists by the criteria that you may have. Then, tailor the message, content, and/or graphics to appeal specifically to each group.

Complement the Effort with Other Channels: How many touches does it take to make a sale? If there really is a magic number, the bottom line is this: the answer is not typically 1! Rather, it may take multiple efforts through multiple channels to truly make an impression on a prospect. Use channels such as email, social media, and mobile marketing in addition to the direct mail piece to truly deliver an integrated, cross-channel campaign.

Test Multiple Designs & Offers: Testing multiple offers does not indicate that you are not sure of what you’re doing. Rather, it proves that you are truly supporting your marketing efforts and that you’re determined to ensure that your marketing & educational campaigns are the best they can be. Try testing multiple mailers with different wording and graphics. Then, present the reports to your team to show them what’s working the best.

If you need help with your campaigns, let us know!