An educated client

Our resident marketing genius, John was quoted in an industry magazine put out by PIA/GATF, Management Portfolio.  The basis of the article is about using market research and specifically,  research from Print in the Mix ( a website by the Print Council and several universities that is basically a clearinghouse of print information for printers).

From John:  “Research helps create a more educated client.  It mades our job easier when a client knows exactly what he/she wants and how they want it.  Some customers are pretty analytical.  We use data to recognize the customers’ love of information – and being the source that delivers it.”

Greener than you think

Caught some interesting stats in the latest addition of Deliver magazine.  It seems people have skewed perception of how much waste is generated by direct mail:

GREENER THAN YOU THINK

A new survey reveals surprisingly wrongheaded

beliefs about the environmental impact of direct mail

 

A recent survey of 1,000 consumers revealed a gulf between the perceived eco-impact of direct mail and its actual influence. “They wildly overestimate direct mail’s impact on the environment,” says Michael Critelli, executive chairman of Pitney Bowes Inc., which co-sponsored the 2007 DMNews/Pitney Bowes Survey of Consumer Attitudes. Critelli says he expected a disparity between perception and reality— “but not nearly as much as we saw.”

 

For instance, asked to estimate the amount of municipal waste created nationwide by advertising mail, 48 percent of respondents thought direct mail accounted for more than half of it. Thirty-six percent said it accounted for more than a third. And 12 percent thought it generated 9 percent. In fact, direct mail generates just 2 percent of all U.S. municipal waste, according to a DMNews article about the survey. (Two percent chose this answer.) Asked to rank select activities by the amount of carbon dioxide they generate, 16.8 percent chose the delivery of direct mail as third most harmful, ahead of using a year’s worth of electricity for select refrigerators and running a clothes dryer 10 times a week for a year. (Running the dryer creates the most CO2, according to a chart accompanying the DMNews article on the poll.) Experts trace these skewed perceptions to the fact that the typical mailing attracts only a tiny percentage of responses, leading others to view unsolicited material as wasteful. “[Mail] is something people see and handle every single day,” Critelli says. “Unfortunately, a lot of it doesn’t get a response.” The good news? More than two-thirds said they’d view direct mail more positively if senders recycled cardboard or planted new trees.

Of course, the reality is that many marketers are already ahead of them on this. — Anne Stuart

Now that’s personal

We’ve done some highly targeted direct mail pieces (for colleges and otherwise) that have spoken to the audience on a personal level.  Good data and digital printing has made print more targeted than ever.  But there was an amazing story in the 1to1 media blog.

The small school in northeast Pennsylvania wanted to attract local incoming freshmen who typically had the credentials to attend college far away from home. Their marketing team decided to focus on a small number of students to personally bombard with advertising. Not brochures in the mail, calls to their house, or personal websites like a lot of colleges do; Wilkes bought billboard space, radio spots, and TV commercials to say things like “Nicole Pollock: Our goal at Wilkes University is to be as much a mentor as your mother has been. (Now, if we could only make her ravioli.)”

Now obviously something like this isn’t feasible for a mass audience or for every application.  But it’s a great example of how much can be done with a little imagination.