1. If you are looking for an attractive but inexpensive envelope check out flexoprinting and a web-style envelope. Flexo printing has come a long way from when it was called a rubber stamp. You can also produce half tones and solid coverage.
2. By letting the printer/converter have the appropriate amount of time to manufacture an order and allowing them to find the most efficient raw materials for your custom order is the best way to get aggressive pricing. The materials in the envelope process (paper, patch, cartons) represent on average 35% of the envelope cost. The cost can rise 10%-20% if forced to purchase inefficient materials.
3. If you are trying to create a 4 color envelope but have the budget for only 2 color, running 2 PMS colors on a jet press using a mix of screens and solids will provide a more diverse look than just two solid colors.
4. When running three PMS colors, it may be cost efficient to actually run 4CP as many printers discount the set up time running process vs. PMS colors.
5. Envelope converters will experience 1/16” variance in either direction when die cutting envelopes. Designers need to take that into account especially when their design involves colors that they do not want to bleed. Realizing the variance, a designer may choose to avoid designs where color stops at the fold of an envelope.
6. Many envelope converters have switched their traditional window high dies (metal die) to magnetic or flexible die systems. The flex dies are much less expensive making it easier than ever to create unique pistol, double and odd shaped windows designed to help get your envelope opened.
7. The “brown paper bag” envelope is a completely automatically insertable envelope that is manufactured on International Paper 24# Sand Kraft to give the appearance of a brown paper bag. This makes the inference “we’ve cut all corners to give you this special offer” very believable.

There are some questions that immediately confuse business owners. One of them is to ask what their costs are of acquiring new customers. It’s surprising to think that companies don’t know, but a number of businesses simply have no clue, much less where to start. A business could have a fantastic product, with huge growth and profit potential, but if the costs of finding new customers far exceeds the profit generated, then it’s a complete waste of time. In addition, it’s not just about knowing the cost, but about taking steps to reduce those costs. Why are so many companies unable to figure out the costs of getting new customers? More importantly, how does a company figure out these costs and what can be done to lower them? We’ll look at the how and why, and provide insight into how to reduce the cost of getting new customers.

How does a company figure out its cost of getting new customers?

When it comes to figuring out the cost of securing new customers, there really is only one way to figure it out. Better yet, there is only one method to both figure out the cost, and lower that cost. Marketing is the one and only source a company has to figure out its cost of new customers. In addition, marketing is the tool by which companies can use to lower costs, and improve their abilities to secure new customers, and win business. So, how does marketing help find new customers, explain the cost of finding those customers, and ultimately show the path to reducing those costs? Well, it’s all about how efficient a company’s marketing plans are, and how that company goes about tracking the performance of their plans. At the end of the day, the methods are pretty straightforward. It’s the application and follow through that some companies do better than others. It’s this follow through that distinguishes the best enterprises.

How does a company track its marketing initiatives?

There really isn’t any secret to tracking the results of a company’s marketing initiatives. It’s a simple calculation to figure out the cost of each new customer that arises from a marketing plan. For example, let’s assume that a company spent $2,500.00 on an advertising campaign and found that it resulted in the acquisition of 50 new customers. The cost per customer for this marketing initiative is simply $2,500.00 divided by 50 customers, or $50.00 a customer. Now, this is merely a simple example, and the analysis if far more involved than that. The company would then want to know how many customers actually ordered, and what the growth potential would be for those customers. However, the principles still apply. It’s merely taking the total spent on a marketing initiative, and then tracking the results of that initiative. For the above example, if the gross profit generated by the sale of the product was only $60.00, then the cost of this marketing initiative was perhaps not as good as it could be. So, changes would need to be made, and new marketing plans adopted. However, over time, those marketing plans could be modified to produce far better results. A company wanting to know the best and least expensive way to find new customers, would make it a point to track the results of their initiatives. In fact, this is how companies both increase their marketing effectiveness, and reduce their costs of acquiring new customers. Consider the following table below. It shows the different types of marketing initiatives a company may use, with the number of new customers resulting from each initiative, and their appropriate costs. The best companies constantly update and modify each new plan, finding new ways to both reduce costs, and improve results.

What’s the cheapest way to find new customers?

What’s the easiest and least expensive way to find new customers? Well, looking at the table above, it’s rather obvious that word of mouth advertising costs absolutely nothing and produces solid results. If you’ve ever wondered how well your business is doing servicing your existing customers, then take a look at the number of new customers your business secures through word of mouth advertising. If your business is doing a good job, has a solid market presence, and is number one in your customer’s eyes, then you’ll see the results of your efforts in the number of customer references your business receives. This is perhaps the single greatest endorsement of having a good sales and customer service team. If your business is servicing clients well, you’ll see the results.

Tracking the results of marketing initiatives is nowhere near as difficult as it might seem. The easiest way is to simply ask customers how they found your business, and make sure to track their answers accordingly. Other methods include tracking the number of inquiries through your company’s web-site or blog. It is incumbent upon businesses to track the performance of their marketing initiatives and set plans to both improve their performance, and lower their costs. Marketing is not black magic, and the results of marketing initiatives can help put your business in front of customers, and ahead of your competition. Being a strong market presence in the industry your business services, will help position your company for years to come.

There are some great benefits to being a small agency. You might share my philosophy that staying small provides the opportunity for a variety of extraordinary freedoms the bigger shops don’t have, and therefore “staying small” is something worth fighting for. But being small also has its own set of unique challenges.

For example, every employee has a lot more power when it comes to delivering — or not delivering — on your brand promise. Our sheer numbers — employees, client connections, vendor interactions, etc. — are likely on a smaller scale than at a bigger shop. We don’t work in nearly the same volume, and when the canvas is smaller, the imperfections are more obvious. I equate it to this: It’s more apparent that a piece to the puzzle is missing when there are 75 pieces than when there are 1,000, correct? My point is that you’re only as strong as your weakest link. And if your chain is on the shorter end — as is the case with small agencies — each link then becomes that much more important.

Because small agencies can’t always compete with the big ones on things like breadth and depth of services, resources and quantity of staff, we need to stand out in different ways. The most important “different way” is to have a clearly defined brand that’s consistent, palpable, unique, energizing and memorable. When you’re bigger, there are more distractions to bridge and deflect from inconsistencies or inadequacies in the brand. But when you’re smaller, the sum of all parts is easier to grasp, and therefore those same flaws are more noticeable. Small agencies need to clearly distinguish who they are and then weave that into all they do — from what their letterhead looks like to the tone of their e-mails, the form and function of their Web site to the way in which visitors are greeted at the front door.

So where do you start in getting your small agency’s brand on track? First off, I’d begin by laying the groundwork for why this is important, specifically with your internal audience: employees. They likely recognize that bigger shops have size working to their advantage, but could probably use some insight into why smaller shops need to be more systematic and precise in the delivery of their brand. Next, shift to taking action. Here are a few a steps that will provide a framework for the process:

Define a core brand for your small agency and make it something ownable and differentiated. This won’t (and shouldn’t) happen overnight. Take some time to soul search, research, review and refine. Then step away from it for a while before landing on something. This is a huge step — and likely the most difficult — so take it seriously and approach it as strategically as you would for any one of your clients.

Review every single internal and external touch point for your agency — and don’t overlook even the most mundane details. Do those fake roses at the front desk really represent your brand, or should they be live orchids? A bonsai tree? No flora at all? Do your internal processes — like employee-review protocols and meeting formats — match your brand persona? How about marketing plan and reporting formats? E-mail signatures? The way the phones are answered? Letterhead? Take a good hard look at everything from client deliverables to vendor interaction and ensure that your brand is represented in all of it.

Create a feedback loop and make it actionable. Give both insiders and outsiders a medium to illuminate disconnects with your brand that you might not see. For example, we did this internally by establishing employee task forces on everything from our agency’s industry engagement to talent recruitment, and externally with clients and friends of the agency by doing consistent online surveys about our performance, establishing an interactive blog and an ongoing e-mail program. And establish procedures for reviewing your losses as well as your wins so you can continually refine your brand and how it’s lived out. Constantly check in to see how your brand is organically evolving — is it for the better or worse? Then do something with the findings. Don’t let what can be invaluable input sit idly by on the corner of your desk. Make big or small changes and make them swiftly and publicly to demonstrate your commitment to fulfilling your mission.

Be willing to live and die by the sword. If you can afford to do it (and in my opinion, you can’t afford not to), make sure your clients and the work you produce for them align with your brand intentions. If you are a cutting-edge digital shop committed to deploying the latest and greatest technologies, then perhaps you don’t take the car dealer down the street who simply wants a production house to develop a TV ad touting its weekend blowout sale. This sacrifice in the name of the brand is a tough one to swallow, but one we feel speaks volumes and will pay off in the long run.

These steps are things that larger agencies don’t necessarily have to spend time and energy on. And it may not seem fair that they don’t. But while we’re happily small, it’ll remain a priority for me and my agency as I’m confident it’s been what’s fed our growth spurt over the past few years and what will remain a major factor in what helps us thrive in years to come.

Article written by Meredith Vaughan

Article taken from Adage.com

• Always design a folded self mailer so the finished fold is on the bottom. This allows one wafer on top rather then 2 on the bottom saving the customer money.
• When mailing a concentrated flat mailing do not fold to a letter size. By folding it down you are not only required to wafer the piece, you are also unable to attain a DDU postage rate because it is no longer available for letters.
• Do you ever send out a direct mail campaign with multiple copy tests or versions printing in black (i.e., price tests, sales reps’ names, etc.)? These are often time and budget nightmares. When possible, it’s cost-effective to print shells (form or letter) and then ink-jet the copy that varies onto the shell at the same time you’re ink-jetting the address block.
• Consider co-mingling. Co-mingling means sorting your mail with another company’s mail of similar size to achieve the BMC/SCF discounts you wouldn’t qualify for with your mailing alone. With postage generally being half the cost of the job, these savings add up. Consider doing this if you are mailing a project that is nationwide and would normally not go to the BMC/SCF level due to a lack of concentration (meaning a mailing that is spread out thin across the United States).
• Make sure the aspect ratio of your direct mail piece is greater than 1.3 but less than 2.5. This will get you a better postage rate. To determine the aspect ratio simply divide the length by the width. For example, a 6×9 postcard has an aspect ratio of 1.5 which is good (9 divided by 6). This is why square mailers are good and bad. Good because the size is unique and it will stand out in your prospect’s mailbox, but bad because the postage costs will be higher than normal (aspect ratio is 1).
• Make sure you confirm that your direct mail’s address block uses a minimum font size of 8pt of any readable font. If it doesn’t, you might incur extra costs from the USPS.
• If you mail a letter package with a window envelope, make sure you do the tap test. What you do is take your letter package and tap the bottom side against a flat surface. According to USPS regulations, a minimum of .125” space around the entire address area must be maintained.
• Check Tabbing. If you send out self-mailers or booklets, make sure you consult with your vendor on the proper amount and positioning of the tabbing that keeps the piece closed. It may seem like a minor issue, but you could get hit with big postal penalties if you don’t do it right.
• Are you sending out letter packages? If so, make sure the components are sized so that it leaves at least a 1/4” on both the left and right side when inserted into the envelope and a 1/8” minimum throat. The throat is the opening height of the envelope. These measurements are required for efficient and cost-effective machine inserting of the components into the envelopes.

1. Two critical elements influencing email deliverability can be summarized by sender reputation and content relevance. An email sender’s reputation is developed over time by sending consistently to well-managed distribution lists. This is then further influenced by producing content that is highly targeted and relevant to your audience.
2. If your email marketing vendor supports Google Analytics tracking, convert your web links so you can track all the different pages of your website that a customer or prospects visits after they click thru from the email.
3. Before launching an email blast, make sure you test in different email browsers such as Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. Consider testing this tactic: a week or two after you send an email blast download the non-openers and send them a second email with a different subject line. Make sure, however, that you suppress the openers.
4. When writing an email blast, put a call-to-action button at both the top AND bottom of a piece, and make some of the text clickable throughout the body copy. That way whenever the recipient decides to click through and take the offer, they won’t have to scroll up or down to find a “submit” button. Make it ultra-easy to respond at any time throughout the email.
5. If your headline in an HTML email is a graphic and contains the offer, make sure you re-state the offer as the first line of text in the body copy. Some browsers strip out graphics in an HTML email, and if your offer is in the headline that gets stripped out because it’s part of the graphics, then the recipient will not immediately know what the offer is. They shouldn’t be expected to read the whole email before the offer is repeated again in the footer. In general, you should design HTML emails with more copy than images because many email browsers nowadays are automatically blocking images.
6. If you are B2B, keep in mind when creating email campaigns that many professionals use the preview pane. As a result, try to put your offer at the top of the email. You should also keep your subject line to 50 characters or less.
7. If you have the data to do so, consider segmenting your email file into the 4 time zones. This will enable you to accurately test and find out exactly what blast time produces the best results.

1. Based on our experience, PURLs work best for lead generation, not for directly selling something. We encourage you to test, however, because you might get different results based on your product or service.
2. Instead of using an existing domain for a PURL, register a brand new one. This enables you to get very creative and brand your campaign. Simply use Go Daddy’s bulk registration tool to type whatever domain ideas come to mind and then see which ones are available.
3. Make sure you optimize the response form on your PURL landing page. Only ask the questions that are 100% necessary. If there’s information you can get from them after they respond, then don’t include these questions on the form. The path from visiting the landing page to clicking the “submit” button should be as easy as possible.
4. Your PURL landing page should be very relevant with swapping out copy and images. If your PURL vendor can do it, customize the thank you page and thank you email as well. Doing so keeps the relevancy momentum going from start to finish which makes the campaign more effective.
5. Regarding your PURL landing page, aim for relevant, clean and simple. And don’t include distractions like external links unless you absolutely have to, and if you do, make them open up in a new window.
6. A PURL gives you valuable data: who visited the PURL and responded, who visited and didn’t respond and who didn’t visit at all. Make sure you’re using this information to the fullest by personalizing your follow up to these different segments.

1. Customers prefer the look of foil over paper by 16%. Increase your response rates by using silver or hologram labels.
2. Choice depresses response. People are already faced with the choice to respond to a direct mail piece or not, so to give them a choice of offer, a choice of premium or any other thing that makes them stop and think, they are that much more likely to set the piece aside to deal with it later and never get back to it.
3. You have 15 seconds as they are poised with their mail over the trash can to make an impression, so if they take the time to actually read your piece, you want them to immediately say “YES!”, not “I wonder which would be better?”. That being said, the one place where choice does help close a deal is to give the
4. recipient a choice of how to respond — via mail, phone, online, or even fax. Make it convenient for them to say YES and your response rate will improve!
5. Many clients come to us with existing corporate identity that is limited to one or two pantone colors contained in their logo. When designing 4/color work for these clients, it is helpful to “extend” the palette. Using their existing chips as the core for the primary palette, arrange additional chips which extend this primary palette to 4 – 6 colors. These should match the core colors in balance and intensity. Lastly, find swatches that compliment one another and envision this palette working within your design.
6. Some of the most attractive designs are built around a great photo or illustration. When selecting imagery, good designers will always read the copy. Images should support the copy and visually communicate the concept. Gratuitous imagery, while adding visual interest to a design, will usually “muddy” the communication if not tied in some way to the copy. The one exception to this would be the use of backgrounds to add depth and texture overall. Lastly, try to find different and interesting ways to crop photos/illustrations in a layout, i.e. get out of the “box”.
7. White space is your friend! Yes, it’s true… When your audience’s attention needs to be captured within seconds, there’s nothing like a message or image that’s crystal clear and easy to read. Try expanding a piece to multi-page rather than cramming everything into your design. Less visual noise = more visual power.
8. Create your own brand guidelines. Consistency and frequency is key to successful design and marketing. Start with a general set of rules that define even just the basics: color palette, font style and size and the type of imagery used. When used consistently over the long haul it becomes an extremely important and effective tool.
9. Be inspired. When you see something that is visually appealing – clip it, bookmark it, file it and remember it. Realize what made you stop when you first saw it…did it make you smile? Did it get you thinking? Don’t be afraid to use your emotions in your design tactics to create your own inspiring piece.