Direct_Mail_supports_marketing_campaigns

Direct mail important during Covid 19 lock-down

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Many direct mail specialists believe that with substantially more people working from home than usual due to Covid -19, direct mail will gain more importance. It is likely more consumers will look at direct mail pieces as they now have more time than normal to read their mail.

“I spoke to a customer earlier this week who receives a catalogue every month which she never reads, however, when the catalogue arrived in the post the other day, she sat down with a coffee and looked through it.”

The best time to advertise your company is when others are not. Now is the perfect time to communicate with your customers, even if it is simply to say “We are open, you may not have used our online service before, but we can deliver directly to your door.”

The public will soon get tired of so much screen time and the negative news cycle. It is an important time to advertise and promote your company to ensure your brand demonstrates it’s caring side by communicating with your customers at this difficult time.

Changing shopping habits

We believe more people will be trying online shopping when they wouldn’t normally do so and will continue to shop online even when this crisis is over. Covid 19 is already increasing the amount of online shopping in different demographics (not just now but forever).

With consumer spending on going out curtailed, they are turning to making purchases online for themselves or their home. We understand that many businesses are wary of spending money on advertising at the moment and are concentrating on cash-flow, supporting their staff and staying open. However, consumers will be trying online shopping at home – this is where direct mail can have a huge positive impact on your business. Website visits are driven more by direct mail than any other marketing channels.

Past history in these moments of crisis has shown that the brands that come out the other side really strong are those that advertise through it, and those that hold back on their advertising spend are the ones that struggle to gain momentum when the country returns to the new normal. After the initial period of transition finishes, trade will return swiftly. Those companies that have advertised to their customers during this time will be ahead of their competitors.

Direct mail, more than glossy brochures

There are many ways of communicating with your customers, you don’t need to be sending out expensive glossy brochures all the time, you could send out leaflets, postcards, smaller brochures or even a letter.

JPS Print Consultants have a vast experience in print and direct mail and can help you plan the best campaign to suit your needs and budget.

Contact Jason at JPS Print Consultants today to see how we can support your direct mail activities

To find out more information and discuss your direct mail plans in more detail please contact Jason Smith on 0800 0834 827, or email Jason@jpsprintconsultants.com.

Royal mail incentive packages JPS Print Consultants

Take advantage of Royal Mail incentive packages for direct mail

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Contact your customers for as little as 12p with Royal Mail’s new special offer incentive

Why not get ahead of your competitors with a good start to your marketing activities in 2020? This exciting offer allows businesses to send incremental Advertising, Responsible and Partially addressed mail for a little as 12p per item.

Direct mail is proven to be one of the most successful ways of driving people to your website and increasing sales. Many people are overwhelmed by the volume of email they receive. As a result, they simply don’t open the majority of marketing and promotional emails that come into their inbox. At JPS Print Consultants, we believe the best results are obtained when using printed mail and email as a combination within your marketing campaign.  You can read more about this in our blog.

The incentive period will run from 2nd January until 28th March giving you a great opportunity to contact your customers after Christmas, with a Valentine’s day or Mothers day campaign, a pre-Easter promotion or simply connecting with your customers during this period to remind and tempt them to purchase from you.

How does this incentive work?

  • The incentive is for all mailmark products (letter size postcards or envelopes or large letter polywrapped items)
  • Volumes between 30000 and 1million items.
  • Postage credits will be paid for each qualifying incremental item
  • Application forms must be submitted between 25th November 2019 and 13th March 2020

To be considered – JPS Print Consultants can help you with this application process.  Contact Jason for more details.

Postage rates

Format Weight Range January to March 2020 Incentive
Postage Rate (£)
Letter 0-100g 0.12
Large Letter 0-100g 0.21
Large Letter 101-250g 0.25


To find out more information on this incentive and how you can benefit from it, please contact Jason Smith on 0800 0834 827 or jason@jpsprintconsultants.com

Direct mail  works and is a cost effective marketing tool. Take advantage of this offer and make considerable savings on your marketing activities.

For further information visit Royal Mail’s website January-to-March-2020incentive offer and to see for full terms and conditions.

Partially addressed mail blog envelopes

Partially addressed mail – our latest direct mail offering

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Since the introduction of the GDPR last year, many companies have been worried about contacting potential customers without consent.  As a result, they have not been able to market themselves as they would like to.  The Partially addressed mail service could potentially overcome this issue as no name is needed to personalise the envelope.  This would address some worries of mailing in a post GDPR world.

Partially addressed mail – an alternative to cold calling for generating new business

Royal Mail have recently brought out a new Partially Addressed service which helps customers overcome the issue of GDPR as no personally identifiable data is required.  JPS Print Consultants can help you save between 5p-10p per item on average over a cold list mailing with Partially addressed mail.

What is partially addressed mail?

This service is for advertisers prospecting to new customers. It is the same as normal addressed mail in that it is targeted but without the use of personal data of the recipients.  The new offering from the Royal Mail uses geo-demographics at postcode level.  However, the mail will be addressed to the household (for example – The Occupier, Book lover, Holiday Maker or whoever you choose).

Partially addressed mail blog envelopes

What are the benefits of partially addressed mail?

Aside from the benefit of simplifying your approach to prospecting, there are significant cost-savings to be made by using this service.

  • 4p saving per item on letter format items
  • 2p saving per item on large letter format
  • Significantly reduced cold data costs as no need to purchase personal data

In addition the service ensures that businesses are GDPR Compliant.

Royal Mail estimate that you will achieve 30% more reach and a solid 86% of recipients are engaged with mail received in this way.

How does partially addressed mail work?

For postcode areas that you are already targeting heavily, partially addressed mail works as a top up in those postcode areas. Your existing customers are removed so they don’t receive more than one letter.

What are the requirements to use this service?

There must be a minimum of 10,000 items per mailing and requirement to mail all households within each targeted postcode. (removing personal addresses, existing customers and suppressed customers).

All partially addressed mail needs to include a declaration to reassure the recipient that no personally identifiable details have been used in the creation of the mailing.

This service is still applicable for customers who are using the existing 70 advertising mail and mail mark services.

Combine the Partially Addressed Service with JPS Print Consultants for fantastic results.

We can provide you with a complete service for Partially Addressed Mail including sophisticated targeting and post project evaluation.

If you would like to find out more information on partially addressed mail and how it can help you, please contact Jason Smith on 0800 0834 827 or jason@jpsprintconsultants.com

 

Direct_Mail_supports_marketing_campaigns

JPS Print Consultants help customers increase sales with Direct Mail

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Direct mail is proven to be one of the most successful ways of driving people to your website and increasing sales. In a recent survey carried out by Market Reach (a division of Royal mail), it was confirmed that the open rates for mail far exceed those of email.

Many people are overwhelmed by the volume of email they receive. As a result, they simply don’t open the majority of marketing and promotional emails that come into their inbox.

The statistics are staggering in comparison with email which has approximately an 11% open rate.  At JPS Print Consultants, we believe the best results are obtained when using printed mail and email as a combination within your marketing campaign.  With the upcoming GDPR regulations on the horizon, we also are seeing that the demand for direct mail is increasing.

 8 reasons why direct mail adds value to your marketing campaign

  1. It is far easier to capture a recipient’s eye with a clever physical piece than email.
  2. The most effective method of driving traffic to website and increasing sales is via direct mail.
  3. Over 71% of physical promotional mail is opened.
  4. Direct Mail is kept in a recipient’s home or office for an average of 17 days.
  5. 23% of mail is shared and passed on to the right recipient in the home.
  6. Direct mail makes people feel more valued and more likely to buy – almost like receiving a gift.
  7. 87% of recipients of direct mail are influenced to go on and make online purchases.
  8. Including direct mail in your marketing mix can increase ROI by 12%.

Direct mail as part of your integrated marketing plan

Online shopping shows no sign of slowing and continues to grow in strength and popularity.  As such, there is an important role for direct mail in the marketing mix.  By sending an actual piece of literature to a customer or potential client, you have an opportunity to demonstrate the value that you can bring to them in a physical and visual manner.

Choosing to deliver a clever piece of marketing in the post offers an opportunity.  Your product or offering can stand out and rise above the noise of the busy digital space.  As a retail business selling a physical product, you can use Direct Mail to show off your product. By using high-res images and strong colours you can demonstrate the quality of what you sell.

Our customers find that many promotional emails are filtered into a different folder in some email clients.  This is even before a customer has a chance to decide if they wish to open it or not.  A targeted physical piece, created with flair and imagination sidetracks these filters.  If a piece stands out, due to clever words, imagery or perhaps shape the recipient often keeps it in a prominent place in the house or office, where more people will see it.  As an example we received a piece or marketing in the post with a plug attached to it.  It told us “not to flush our marketing budget down the drain”.  This level of recall would be difficult to obtain with an email sales message.

That’s not to say that only direct mail is needed.  It is effective as part of the wider marketing mix and should be used to drive customers towards your digital presence.  Physical pieces can be used to inspire a customer to go online and make a decision on purchase.  To be effective with a small budget, businesses use data, technology and a variety of media together to give customers experiences they will remember and want to talk about or take action.

JPS Print Consultants – Print Management Solutions

One client we work very closely with in the retail industry used to mail 20,000 brochures each month this time last year. They are now mailing over 150,000 brochures per month. Our client is extremely pleased with the results they are achieving as a result of direct mail. We can help you grow your business by working with you on your direct mail marketing campaigns.

“You can’t replicate the delight of holding a brochure in your hands. Its having that physical touch that many customers want.” Market Reach

The upfront cost of investing in a direct mail can be more expensive than email.  However, we find that the average lead value of a customer brought in through direct mail is higher.  JPS Print Consultants can help you get more from your marketing investment.  If you are new to direct mail, we can help you save 15% on the postage of your first three mailing campaigns. There are also other postal incentives available if you already send direct mail.

Call us today on 0800 0834 827 or email Jason@jpsprintconsultants.com for more information.

Mail Services – Royal Mail Postal Incentives

Save Money with 4 great Royal Mail Postal Incentives

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We are frequently finding that many companies are not taking advantage of the various Royal mail postal incentives that are available.  Here at JPS Print Consultants, a critical element of our ongoing service to all our customers is to help reduce the cost of the postage element of marketing programmes.  We can do this by selecting the best incentive to match your particular marketing activity.

Below is a complete overview of the incentives and campaigns that Royal mail offer. The discounts are in the form of postage credits.  These credits can be redeemed with Royal Mail or any downstream access providers such as Secured mail, Citipost, UK Mail and Onepost.

Royal Mail Postal Incentives

1.  First time users

Royal Mail offer postal incentives to customers who have never used advertising mail or who haven’t used it for the past 24 months.  By taking up this offer, customers can claim a 15% discount for up to 3 mailing campaigns within a 12 month period with a minimum of 10k items per mailing. (single one off mailings do not qualify).  Recent market research has shown that customers like receiving information in the post and are more likely to purchase from you as a result.

2. Testing and Innovation

Companies that already send out mail may want to test different offers and formats to see which works best.  In this situation, the testing and innovation incentive will be of benefit.  In real terms this can boost your ROI by a huge 12%. Discounts vary between 15% for advertising mail and 30% for business mail. This scheme is for mail sent over a 6 month period, sending at least 10k items and can measure testing activity. For business mail, there is an additional 10% discount for 6 months to support the roll out should the test be successful.

3. Scheme for growth

This is one of the royal mail postal incentives for companies that want to grow their business by increasing the amount of mail they send.  Increasing the volumes you send, can have a direct impact on  your sales.

The postage savings enable you to target new customers or increase frequency of mailing campaigns. Discounts are for the incremental mail of 150k items or more sent over a 12 month period.

Users are entitled to discounts on any items posted above an agreed baseline (determined by Royal mail based on your historic advertising mail volumes). Visit the Royal Mail Wholesale website  here for more details.

4. Door to Door mailing

Door drops such as leaflets and brochures effectively connect with a wide audience at a very affordable cost.  A huge 92% of people say they read door drops they receive.  An additional 67% say they were prompted to make a purchase as a result of receiving door drops. For as little as £500 it is possible to reach as many as 8,000 potential households.

This scheme offers a 10% discount for new users of door drops within a 6 month period.

JPS Print Consultants are here to guide you

Let JPS Print consultants help guide you through the royal mail postal incentives system.  We can save money on your postage costs and would love to discuss your mailing requirements with you.  We seek the most cost effective mailing solution for your company.  Please contact Jason on 0800 0834 827 or send me an email at jason@jpsprintconsultants.com.  Our team are happy to support you.  We are able to deliver your whole mailing campaign from initial design concept, print, fulfilment and postage.

Naked Mailing

Naked Mailing as a mailing option – JPS Print Consultants

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Naked Mailing could be the ideal solution for your next Direct Marketing campaign.

Is it always really necessary to have your printed items inserted into envelopes or polywrapped?  Did you know you can mail your marketing communications without them?  This method is called Naked Mailing and is a cost-effective approach to mailing.

Name and address details can be inkjetted onto the rear cover of the catalogue.  The items can then be sent out in the post without the need for any envelopes or polywrapping. (unfortunately naked mailings cannot include inserts).

We are helping more and more of our clients to take advantage of this option – saving themselves money on production and postal costs.

Where can cost savings be made?

Production  – By sending items out Naked, there is a cost efficiency in removing the cost of the carrier sheets, plus collation and polywrap.  By removing the need to use envelopes, there are further savings on insertion costs and of course the actual envelopes themselves.

Postal  – Naked mailing is considered more environmentally friendly.  As such they can qualify for Responsible mail postal discounts.  More and more businesses are looking to their CSR and sustainability policies to reduce their impact on the environment, so this can also be a benefit.

Would you like to know more about Naked Mailing and whether your campaigns would qualify?  Please contact us to discuss your particular objectives in more detail.