Video Series on Successful Direct Mail Campaigns

The Direct Marketing IQ site has a great video series on successful direct mail campaigns. This week's example is the fund-raising campaign for the National WWII Museum.

• A perfect demonstration of how to use the celebrity endorsement
• A letter that employs the big copy drivers - patriotism, flattery, guilt - and more!
• With long copy (4-page letter), a lift letter, a colorful brochure, full-page reply, various premiums and yellow Business Reply Envelope.

For more information see the DirectMarketingIQ web site.

Wilson Printing

Save 3% on Postage With USPS Mobile Barcode Promotion

Now may be the best time to do a direct mailing! You can save 3% on postage costs with the US Post Office's Mobile Barcode Promotion.

From July 1, 2011 through Agust 31, 2011, the U.S. Postal Service is offering business mailers an upfront 3% discount on First-Class Mail and Standard Mail letters and flats that include a mobile barcode (also called QR Codes.)

QR Codes provide a connection between print and the digital world. QR Codes are two-dimensional (2-D) images that can be read by smartphones that have a 2-D barcode application/reader. When scanned, QR Codes can motivate an otherwise passive consumer to take immediate action: make a purchase, register for an event, or download a coupon.

Increase Your Response Rates With Multitouch Campaigns

Email and SMS text messaging can also be integrated into multitouch marketing campaigns with QR Codes. For example, consumers receiving a direct mail piece that contains a QR Code could be immediately linked to a microsite. Then, shortly after the visiting the microsite, they receive an email or SMS text response thanking them for visiting the site. Based on information they chose to share while at the microsite, they may receive additional direct mail pieces, text or social media notifications following up on the products or services they expressed interest in.

Obtain More Marketing Data For Better Campaign Design

QR Codes can also help marketers track helpful information for their campaigns. Marketers can analyze which QR Codes are being scanned the most to determine what offers are working best. Marketers can also track which geographical area they are being scanned in. All of this information can help develop the next campaign.

Save Time and Money

Combining direct mail and QR codes can also save time and money. Rather than having to pay for business reply mail and waiting for the post office to return the information, marketers can direct customers to respond online in real time via smartphone.

Additionally, intelligent mail tracking available through the USPS’s CONFIRM enables marketers to electronically determine the progress of their mailings through the postal system. Delivery alerts then make it possible for a marketer to notify customers via email or a text message to expect a personalized package in the mail, sparking curiosity.

Here's a link to promotion details from the US Postal Service web site.

Contact Wilson Printing today - we can help design your direct mail piece including creating your QR Codes. Call us at 805-964-8875 or scan this QR Code to call us! (Please note that phones may have difficulty reading a QR Code on older, CRT style monitors. QR Codes work best on printed materials.)

Wilson Printing

Marketing Tips: Excellent web site source for all things paper, print and design

Ed by NewPage Corporation (paper manufacturer) has put together an amazing site of all things paper, print and design. It includes some great examples of interactive marketing campaigns.

A really great example is tip #14 Getting Personal - especially the story on the advertising campaign to promote the Olympus PEN digital camera. The campaign had interactive site - participants saw themselves onscreen with a 3-D Olympus PEN in their hands and could interact with camera!

Check it out at http://edliveshere.com

For more tips, follow Wilson Printing on Facebook and Twitter!

Marketing Tips: Cross Channel Marketing

What Is Cross Channel Marketing?
Every successful business uses multichannel marketing, utilizing more than one channel in their marketing mix, for example direct mail, email, text messages, and online social networks. Cross channel marketing uses one or more marketing channels to promote a marketing initiative that uses another channel.


Increase Direct Mail Response and ROI Through Online Channels
A perfect example of using a cross channel marketing approach is pre-publicizing a direct mailing though online channels. Use your Facebook, Twitter, email and text messaging to tell people to look in the mail for the soon to be arriving piece. This method can be used to promote the mailing of a product catalog, season brochure, or donation request.

Timing is critical with integrated cross channel marketing; make sure that the online publicity is distributed before the direct mail piece is expected to arrive.


Increase Traffic to Your Online Content With Direct Mail
Conversely, one of the best ways to publicize your online content is using your printed marketing collateral. You may have people in your direct mail database that have not visited your web site, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter pages. Let them know about your online presence by giving them a link!

One way to accomplish this is by including a QR Code on your direct mail piece that links to your online content. QR Codes can link to not just your web site, but to any URL including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter pages.

You can track the number of times people go to the web page via the QR Code by using a service like bit.ly. Bit.ly shortens long URLs and tracks the number times people visit a link via the shortened URL. Using a shortened URL has the additional advantage of having less data so the QR Code image is easier to read by smartphones. Here is an example QR Code using a bit.ly shortened URL to Wilson Printing's Twitter page.

QR Code to Wilson Printing's Twitter page using a bit.ly shortened URL http://bit.ly/ijWaoZ

A great example of using print marketing collateral to increase online traffic is in the Forms+Surfaces Architectural Surfaces catalog we profiled in our last newsletter. They included a QR Code on their Additional Resources page that links to a web page to sign up for their eNews.

Forms+Surfaces catalog with QR Code to web site.

Important! Make sure that the web page you are directing the customer's smartphone to is compatible with smartphones! When creating and testing QR Codes, smartphones have difficulty scanning a CRT monitor, so print the QR Code to test. Also, not everyone has access to a smartphone with a QR Code scanner application, so make sure you include the actual URL address wherever you use a QR Code in a printed piece and link the graphic if it is online.

For more marketing tips follow Wilson Printing on Facebook and Twitter.

Make Sure Your Documents Are Bound Perfectly!

Are you responsible for your company's annual reports? Product brochures? Catalogs? Are you sure that they aren't losing pages?

Since opening 36 years ago, Wilson Printing has printed and bound thousands of annual reports, books, brochures, and catalogs. We recently purchased a new, hot glue, perfect binder - the Bourg BB3002. There is a great reason why we decided to purchase the Bourg BB 3002 - it provides superior binding.

What makes the Bourg BB3002 a superior binding machine and why should you use it?

• 3 cylinder gluing process provides superior binding. Binders with fewer gluing processes can result in loose pages.
• Automated side glue rollers that adjust to every book, providing a cleaner and stronger bind.
• Channel scoring which is far superior to older processes that rely on rotary scoring disks which have a tendency to skew, crack, or delaminate covers and can mis-align spine printing.
• Low bundle follower insures that book block is perfectly gathered resulting in more consistent page lineup.
• Cover nipping station with 4 quality assurance controls to achieve highest quality possible.
• Soft reception conveyor design prevents damage to spine of finished books.

So next time you're looking for the best printing and binding service, give Wilson Printing a call!

For more marketing tips, follow Wilson Printing on Facebook and Twitter.

Upcoming Contest Deadlines

Winning an award for your design is a great way to gain that recognition you deserve. Last year, we won the Premier Print Award for Brochure Printing for the Granada's 2010/2011 Season Brochure!

If you would like to get recognition for your work, or just looking for some design inspiration, here are some links to upcoming contests. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to enter and win. Let us know if you do!

American Business Awards Recognizing Achievement in Every Facet of Work Life (2010 contest closes April 27, 2011)

American Design Awards (2011 Summer Design contest closes August 15, 2011 )

ARC Awards Honoring Excellence in Annual Reports (2011 contest closes May 5, 2011)

Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals MarCom Awards (2011 awards closes September 16, 2011)

HOW Magazine's In-HOWse Awards Giving Recognition to In-House Designers (current contest closes May 2, 2011)

The International Davey Awards Honoring the Creative Excellence of Smaller Agencies and Companies (7th Annual contest closes October 1, 2011)

League of American Communications Professionals Vision Awards Honoring Excellence in Annual Report Design (2010 design contest closes May 13, 2011)

Wilson Printing is proud to be the printer of choice for many award winning designers, business professionals, and organizations. If you've won an award for your work, let us know! We'd love to let other people know about your excellent work!

Answers to Poster Printing FAQs!

After over 36 years of printing, Wilson Printing has seen quite a bit of poster printing. We also have seen poster printing change - especially with recent integration of QR Codes making posters interactive. So we decided to put together some info on posters!

Answers to Poster FAQs:

What size posters can you print? We can print any size up to 41.5" in one direction. Some typical sizes include 16" x 24", 24" x 36", and 40" x 75".

Do you print high quality art prints? I would like to make a poster of a photo and have it framed. Yes, we can print very high quality art prints and also recommend the best papers for you to use. We recommend that if you plan on framing your print, you should buy the frame first and format your image size to fit the frame. If you have someone print first and it is an unusual size, custom framing can get very expensive.

We need small handouts and posters. What's a good size to design for? A good size for smaller sized handbills is 5.5" x 8.5" and 4.25" x 5.5", and flyers at 8.5" x 11". These sizes allow us to setup multiple copies of your piece on a single page, making it less expensive for you.

Can you print a low cost poster for us? Yes, we can print economical, good quality color posters up to 12" x 18" on our Docucolor color laser printer.

Can you mount posters on a hard backing? Yes, we can mount posters on either black or white foam board / foam core / Gator board / PVC board.

We need posters for outdoor use. Do you print UV resistant posters? Yes, we can print on either gloss stock or vinyl canvas (scrim vinyl) with UV resistant inks for durable outdoor signage our large format printers up to 42" on one length (effective print area is 41.5", the other length depending on length of roll.)

We need a large run of high quality color posters. How large of a poster can you print? We can print large runs of posters up to 19" x 27" in full color on our Lithrone press (offset process.)

Can you customize or personalize posters without us having to submit a design for each version? Yes, we can print customized or personalized posters up to 12" x 18" on our Indigo printer. For example, we can print one poster design and digitally modify each poster to have a different address, or image, or any other element that you would like to be personalized.

Can you print us a poster that will automatically call our ticket office? Yes, we can! (Well, not automatically. We can add QR Codes to your poster design that, when scanned, will call your ticket office.)

For all of your printing needs - posters, business cards, books, brochures, stationary... visit our web site or give Wilson Printing a call today at 805-964-8875!