Perspectives

How to Lower Printing Costs, Part #5: It's all about Design

Posted by Sam Ricco

Working with great creative professionals is one of the most exciting parts of my job. The magic they impart is incredible. Hand them a creative brief and they come back with cool designs, unique formats, and fantastic use of color and paper stocks. You may ask why a “printing and production” guy is working so closely with the creative team. The answer is, as talented as these people are, they still need guidance and direction in order to keep within budget, meet postal specs and ensure their designs reproduce well on whatever medium you have chosen.

Topics: Direct Mail, printing, print, Direct Marketing, direct mail regulations, USPS, creative, design

Direct Mail: How to Lower Printing Costs – A 5-Part Series

Posted by Sam Ricco

Next to postage, printing is often the next most costly element of a direct mail campaign. Lower your printing costs and your ROI will skyrocket, making your campaigns much more profitable - turning you into an office hero. In this series, I will review 5 ways to reduce your printing costs without sacrificing response rates.

Topics: Direct Mail, Direct Marketing, direct mail regulations, USPS, self-mailer

Direct Mail: The Multi Touch vs. Single Touch Direct Mail Debate

Posted by Sam Ricco

One of the most frequently asked questions I get from clients about direct mail options is “Should we mail to the same audience multiple times or just once?”. The answer I tell everyone is “it depends”. Don’t get me wrong, a multi-touch, multi-medium campaign is always the best approach. However, the realities of limited budgets and the composition of the customer database or prospect list can have a significant impact of on how we execute our marketing campaigns.

Topics: Direct Mail, direct mail regulations, direct mail advertising

Direct Mail: Picture Permit Indicia. Picture Perfect or Underdeveloped?

Posted by Sam Ricco

This is part of an ongoing series of posts relating to the direct mail industry

Topics: Direct Mail, direct mail regulations, USPS

Direct Mail: When a Self-Mailer is No Longer a Self-Mailer

Posted by Sam Ricco

Many of our clients love self-mailers and request them often. They are a cost-effective, versatile and user-friendly direct mail option. Whether you are designing a new self-mailer or re-printing one that you used in the past, it is important to note the considerable changes to the postal regulations that went into effect in January 2013. The old rules were in place for quite some time so it would be easy to overlook the changes…but miss something and you can find yourself losing all of your automation discounts and paying a much higher postage rate.

Topics: Direct Mail, direct mail regulations, direct mail advertising, self-mailer