Master Productions News & Announcements

Boost Profits! Stop Attrition! (And keep customers hooked)

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:58:40 -0400

One of those ways is using the more intimate, personalized nature of 1:1 communications to reduce customer attrition. According to Attrition Busters, it costs the average company eight dollars to replace every one dollar lost to customer attrition. If you could use data to hold onto your customers longer,
that has both an immediate and a longterm impact on your profitability.

Customer attrition is different from customer retention. Customer retention is about keeping your existing customers happy. Customer attrition is the actual defection of those customers. Preventing attrition is something that is often done on a highly targeted basis based on the likelihood that a customer will defect. The risk of customer defection can be a scary thing. But handled correctly, customers on the verge of defection can become your most loyal customers if you handle the situation right.

Whether you are watching customer churn manually or by using specialized software (or just reacting to irate customer phone calls), you can use 1:1 printing as a powerful tool to reduce customer churn and boost your bottom line.

One courier service, for example, used to anticipate defections by manually tracking its customer activity levels. When it got too large to do this by hand, it invested in software that detects likely customer churn by tracking drop-offs in volume or revenues. The software then sends the company an alert so it can address the issue right away—before it’s too late to get the customer back. Using this proactive approach, the courier service has been able to reduce its customer attrition by double digits.

The Top Four Uses of Customer Data Source: One to One Printing

1. Make personal contact.
Talk to each customer personally. Make them feel that they are more than just a name in a database.

2. Find out what happened.
Find out what’s happening and how they feel about your company, products and services. Send them a personalized survey via personalized URL. Or send a hard copy survey in a personalized greeting card.

3. Respond quickly.
Respond to their feedback in a timely manner. Let them know that you appreciate their input. Send them a printed personalized coupon or other incentive of immediate relevance to them.

4. Nurture the relationship.
Once you’ve prevented a defection, nurture that relationship with other personalized and relevant communications to keep that customer close and build their loyalty over time.

Find out more about how 1:1 marketing can become part of your marketing success strategy. Read about tracking your customers by using a campaign dashboard.

Should you be customer profiling?

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:57:58 -0400

In casual conversation, the word “profiling” often has a negative connotation, but in marketing, it is a driving force behind success. Building a customer profile helps you understand your customers’ attitudes, interests and preferences, and tailor your marketing to these and other factors relevant to their buying behavior.

How does it work?

To create targeted campaigns, marketers typically do a basic select by some kind of relevant demographic. A travel agency might select consumers of retirement age, for example, because they tend to have more leisure time. Customer profiles take this a step further, layering on home ownership, median home value and other factors that provide insight into disposable income. It might include whether or not they have purchased a vacation in the past.

How do you develop a profile of your customers?

Smaller marketers often have little data to work with, but tools for getting around this are exploding.

1.    You can purchase data cuts of increased detail.

For a few more dollars per thousand, you can purchase a more refined data select than a single cut. In the earlier example, this might be a list of consumers aged 65 or older who own homes worth at least $150,000 and have purchased at least one vacation in the past 12 months. The trick is to balance the increased cost of the data with the likelihood that it will bring a greater return. This is where testing becomes critical. The more you test, the more you know what brings additional value and what does not.

2.    You can append your existing list with additional data.

If you have an existing customer list, you can do what is called an “append,” or purchase additional data on those same customers that will create a relevant customer profile. You can do this even if you have nothing but an e-mail list. It’s called a “reverse append.”

3.    You can purchase complete customer profiles from list companies like Accudata, Nielsen and Dun & Bradstreet.

These companies are increasingly providing packaged solutions aimed at helping small and mid-sized business owners with an overall demographic overview of customers who spend the most money in their markets. These include both standard selects like median household income and business standard industrial classification (SIC), as well as proprietary categories like “wealth scores” and “super niches.” Customer profiling sounds like a scary word, but even for smaller marketers, it doesn’t have to be. Talk to us about creating a customer profile and taking your targeted and personalized marketing to the next level.

Do you know how to effectively use response boosters?

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:47:22 -0400

What this means is that personalization gets you in the door. It grabs attention. In the eyes of the recipient, it marks the communication as relevant or interesting. But there are many things that can occur between the time the mailer catches someone’s eye and the time that person responds.

If you look through a series of case studies on 1:1 print marketing, whether using personalized URLs (PURLs) or other forms of personalization, marketers with the highest response rates tend not to rely on variable fields alone to motivate recipients to action. There is always some other element present that synergizes with the variable information to make it happen. For example, when a high-profile manufacturer of software for 1:1 printing and cross-media solutions wanted to promote attendance at its trade show booth, it used PURLs as the response mechanism to gather information and track responses. Nearly half of recipients—48%—registered for the event or separate publicity raffle. But the drivers were not due solely to the PURL itself. First, the marketer started with a well-qualified list of prospects. Then it used a Starbucks gift card as an incentive to respond. Finally, it followed up with a personalized e-mail to non-responders.

Common Response Boosters

Let’s look at some of the most common, industry-wide techniques that marketers combine with personalization to maximize response rates.

1. Targeted audience. High response rates are most often the result of having a highly targeted audience that, by virtue of demographics or psychographics, is more likely than average to respond. A home furnishings company, for example, might target first-time homeowners. A lawn care company might send specials on lawn care kits to existing customers who recently purchased a high volume of grass seed.

2. Use of unusual design elements.
Personalization can have a powerful impact, but only if people see it. To attract recipients’ attention in the first place, marketers often start with unusual design elements, such as oversized postcards, clear envelopes or lumpy mail.

3 Utilization of multiple media.
Effective campaigns use multiple media to reinforce the message and remind people to respond. The use of personalized follow-up e-mails is a common technique.

4. High value incentive.
This technique is common in applications using PURL campaigns, especially campaigns for lead generation or information gathering, such as customer feedback or prospect surveys. To motivate recipients to respond, marketers might offer a gift or monetary incentive, such as a restaurant gift card or entry into a sweepstakes.

Pick Your Team! Personalization is a powerful tool, but it’s not a magic wand. Just as we don’t expect athletes to carry their team to glory all by themselves, you shouldn’t expect personalization to carry the load alone, either. Like all marketing elements, personalization works best when it is part of a collective effort. Find out more about how 1:1 marketing can become part of your marketing success strategy.

Web-to-Print Takes Brochure Printing to New Heights

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:30:49 -0400

ThermaTru, a fiberglass and steel exterior door systems company wants to save time and money on their brochure marketing material production. The goal is to create an east-to-use system for managers and distributors to create customized print. The solution the company applied did much more than maintain the quality and consistency of the corporate materials.

ThermaTru trimmed costs and boosted effectiveness by reducing the production time of their brochure. Once their Web-to-Print service was launched live, production time was reduced from months to less than one month. Within the first two months of its launch, 36 builders and distributors had already created several hundred pages for brochures. The ability to create brochures online through a Web-to-Print solution has enabled an ease of use for builders and distributors.

For some time, ThermaTru had been using multi-page, full-color brochures as sales aids for custom builders and distributors. These brochures are then used at home improvement stores. The amount of manual processing and time that it took to create the brochures, in addition to the design process, was consuming and inefficient. ThermaTru’s printer designed a custom Web-to-print system that would accommodate these elements and expedite the workflow. When a distributor or builder enters the custom site, they can either use an already created brochure, or create a brochure themselves using an image bank, templates and specification options. They are then directed to a page count and pricing page.

The brochure is first customized with the front cover, which is built by choosing from different cover designs from a library of over a hundred images or images that the user has uploaded. The user’s logo is then customized onto the cover, while the layout adjusts to the desired graphics and marketing messages. Next, the inside pages of the brochure are integrated from over 40 layout options that include up to 21 images on one page. Copy of the brochure is also chosen from a list of pre-approved marketing messages. Lastly, the user customizes the back cover from a choice of three templates with various marketing messages, images and products. The last step of the program directs the user to a confirmation page where the user can preview the proof and check out.

The dynamism of the Web-to-Print is one of the several reasons for its success. The ease of use and the ability to oversee and control the variations of content help tailor the brochures to target recipients and to accommodate locations and distributors. The brochure printing is done on the Xerox iGen4 digital press, which helps to maintain color consistency and a high resolution of the images. To learn more about how Web-to-print can be a solution for your company’s print collateral management, visit our Web-to-Print services.

Experts Discuss the Future of Direct Mailing

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:54:58 -0400

Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.

Keywords: advertising, marketing, direct mail, USPS, Twitter, social networking, direct marketing, postcard printing

Don’t you LOVE green printing?

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:24:56 -0400

For starters, you can minimize environmentally hazardous materials in your print pieces. Recycled, post-consumer waste and FSC certified papers are heavily available at most printers. If you have a project with size specific requirements, ask your printer what the most effective sheet or web-roll size is available to meet your needs.

Vegetable and soy based inks are available for offset commercial printing jobs, while digital printing uses a low VOC toner. When you choose offset jobs and print with petroleum based inks, you are using a toxic substance that contains carcinogens, chemicals known to cause cancer. Another type of ink that you should steer from is metallic and fluorescent ink. The pigments in these inks contain harmful elements like heavy metals, barium, copper and zinc. In terms of paper coatings, when considering book cover printing, brochure printing, flyer printing or any other printing that requires a coating, choose varnish, bio-degradable or aqueous based coatings instead of press varnish or film lamination.

Print design elements and paper size will impact your material consumption. Choose a finished paper size that will allow you to make an efficient use out of the standard paper sizes. If you are printing flyers or even handbooks, then design your printed piece, so that any supporting information is online and then direct the traffic to your site. Presentation slide placement can go 3-up, 4-up or even 6-up per page to reduce space. Margin space can also be reduced, whenever possible. A great example is page reduction. If you use ½ instead of ¾ page margins on a 200 page book, you will reduce the page count to approximately 180 pages. Font size can also help. Obviously, you want something readable and a good rule of thumb is 10 pt for Arial/Helvetica and 11 pt for Times New Roman. Books and handouts should be printed on both sides of the sheet for paper reduction.

You printer will give you the option to see printed proofs or to view your proofs online. Connect with the printer to drop by and see, touch and feel the paper stock and then proof your work online. Also, ask your printer if you can choose binding elements that are eco-friendly. These options should be available to you as recycled plastic coil and post consumer waste plastics. In terms of runs, try to print only what you need. Digital printing highlights this feature and enables you to utilize on demand production. Another feature of digital printing is Variable Data Printing. Targeting your print marketing materials to specific individuals reduces the printed quantity needed with most pieces. This is conjoined with cleansing and updating your mailing lists. Segment that which will benefit most from the materials.

Lastly, speak up! Tell the people about your green printing choices and encourage them to recycle your print materials once they are done using them. If you are having an event, demonstrate your green efforts and place recycling containers around the premises, to direct people to join the “greening.”

Want to do a green direct mail campaign? Email kate@mp4print, to get started.

XMPie's Creative Spin on Calendar Printing

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:43:18 -0400

XMPie, a premier print marketing software company wanted to send out a unique holiday greeting to existing prospects and customers to demonstrate the promotional cross media marketing capabilities of their program. The ability of the variable data software had to be experienced by printers, the leading target purchasers of XMPie’s technology, so that they could understand the full potential of the cross-media capabilities. Personalized URL’s, which are intimately related to the variable data printing, were designed within a campaign that highlighted interaction and one-to-one capacity.

Out of an international audience of 1,871 printers who received the direct mail holiday greeting, 31.6% participated in the cross-media campaign by visiting their PURL. The holiday greeting card took an interesting spin as a 12 month calendar, while the inserts were delivered to customers and prospects in an appealing case. Content directed the recipients to a PURL for information on how the variable data on the calendar printing was created and how they could use the variable data technology for their own marketing. A follow up email reminder was sent to the recipients who had not yet visited their personalized landing pages.

The copy of the calendar was translated into 6 different languages, while each month contained a theme focused on an XMPie value proposition, like creating new revenue streams and tracking media in real time. The targeted messages in the landing pages contained tailored copy for the prospect and for the existing customer. The calendar direct mail piece included colorful graphics and collage imagery that incorporated numerous variables, including the recipients first and last names, company names, street addresses, cities, states or country.

So, why was this campaign such a success? Never underestimate the power of creativity. The personalized imagery in the campaign was colorful and fun, while the marketing message showcased XMPie’s value propositions all year round.

Better Print Design: 10 Easy Tips

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:57:21 -0400

Bleeds are a safety zone
There will always be paper and design inconsistencies. When you leave room on your document for the printer to move around on, you put your designs in a safety zone. To be safe, ensure that colors and designs that touch the edges, leak out about 3 mm on through the sides.

Have a blast with overprint
Sometimes, your budget will limit you to the amount of colors you can use. If you are limited to only 2 PMS colors, experiment with overprint options to explore various depths inside a limited color pallet.

Don’t get stuck in the paper
Many times, you will feel limited to the sized panels of your print piece. If you want to make your print interactive without having to print extra components onto the printed piece, think outside the box. People’s minds will instantaneously fill in gaps to a bigger picture, so using the boarder of your paper can provide for you a unique and creative interaction.

Sizes like to play
Remember, big is great but it isn’t necessarily better. Small square booklets can be used to create interesting reading experiences and are much easier to carry around.

Images Versus Words War!
I will ignore the temptation to clarify the importance of keeping each separate and instead give you a tip for function. If you are working on textual content, there is a time when you can merge text and graphics. By using typography as an element of design, you can increase the concentration on the content and allow for clear readability.

Minimalism is ATTRACTIVE.
Visual noise is never appealing. The brain does not like to process too many things at one time. If your idea requires putting too much on a single page, don’t try and make it fit-come up with another idea. If you have a client asking you to include too much information, you need to have a consultation and explain the logic behind the placement of the graphic elements.

Proportion to avoid Distortion
Sticking to a grid is key in design work. Composition guidelines are a simple way to execute proportion and relationship. You don’t necessarily need to work with a 3-column set up, a 7 column set up can be playful, 2 column overlaps can be tried or a 3/3/1 set up with a sidebar can work well.

The Ruler of Your Design: Typography
Typographical set up cannot be mended with lines and other elements. Whatever font you use will set the stage for the feel of your message. You must consider what type of voice you want the print piece to have because it is what enables you to communicate your message effectively to your target audience. To be safe you can go with Helvetica, Swiss or Akzidenz Grotesk, but it takes a lot of trial and error to find a font that works for you. Play around with a bunch of them to feel out what works.

Strengthen
If you want a title, quote or logo to particularly stand out go ahead and invert it. White against a dark color will give the design and the typography much more strength and impact. If your type size is 8pt or lower, you may have an issue with containing the ink just after printing, but this is also dependant on stock, printing speed and other factors.

In the Haze
If you are not demanding high quality source photographic content, you can have one low resolution photo ruin your work. On the other hand, a great high resolution quality shot can really transform the impact of the whole design.

For any additional questions or design requests, contact Master Print’s creative graphic design services.

Print a Successful Catalog Today!

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:07:11 -0400

The catalog is a multi page presentation that offers plenty of room for images and copy. While catalogs are often used as product collateral, the booklet format is a familiar and flexible communications tool ideal for complimenting a direct marketing letter or using for annual reports. The style, design and photography of a catalog make it the perfect promotional mail in disguise. According to the PIA Digital Printing Council, just by having a superior quality front cover, revenue can increase by 30-40 percent. That said, let’s go ahead and look at the building blocks of successful catalog execution:

Beginning the Catalog

Every print project begins with an objective that will determine the look, the feel and presentation of your catalog. Once you have determined what you need to communicate, you can reach the right target groups with your product’s prices, style and fulfillment plan. You must also determine your budget. Being clear on your spending will help your designer choose the right papers, formats, printers and styles of your catalog. You can move forward by defining and organizing your products into groups for navigation and by designing the catalog format. The front cover is an important and forceful page, so do not clutter the cover with too many elements. Applicable elements that should be placed on the cover include the logo, tagline and volume. The cover should flow well with the inside front cover and internal pages. Your back cover is a space for the logo, return address, contact information, mailing panel or a feature product.

The Catalog Production Process

After you’ve planned the catalog layout and decided on the dimensions you must finalize your product data. At this point you are working on the master layout that has been sorted and categorized with images and copy. The master layout includes common page elements, grids, design themes and type specifications. Stick with product descriptive copy for consumer catalogs and if you are working on a business or technical catalog include any information corporate buyers may need to make informed purchase decisions. After you’ve completed and processed layout images, ensure that you have made a CMYK conversion.

Catalog Printing Suggestions

To save money and avoid printing delays there are a couple of catalog printing tips and suggestions you should make a note of. If you are pressed for time, consider adjusting to web press specifications. This will significantly speed up your printing. If your catalog meets a minimum quantity and page count, you can go ahead and work with this printing method. If you can organize your pages in increments of 32 for a catalog sized 8-3/8” x 10-7/8” or 64 for a 5-3/8” x 8-3/8” format, you will save considerable costs with the use of an 8 unit web press and less labor. You may also design a slightly smaller page width and save a considerable amount of money by reducing paper, freight and mailing costs. A standard catalog format is a 32 page 8-3/8” x 10-7/8”; the next cost effective format would be printed in 16 page increments on standard house paper.

To prevent direct mailing delays, submit your mailing list at least 7 days before the scheduled binding and addressing. You must also consider list cleansing and the calculation of estimated postage. When deciding on catalog specifications, you may be tempted to save money with a two color design. Research has shown that four color catalogs generate the best responses by grabbing more attention and generating more sales. If you have any additional questions pertaining to your catalog printing options, your printer will give you the necessary advice. Contact Master Print to get started on your catalog today!

Stay Tuned...

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:59:02 -0400

Write here...