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For the small to medium business, mining local prospects is key to sustaining growth, with direct mail continuing to be the primary method of keeping channels between businesses and local customers open.

Many of you might be thinking, 'But it's too expensive!' Think again. There are a number of cost effective solutions such as AMS's Direct Mail Services that are designed to lower postage and packaging costs; often saving businesses up to 47% on standard tariffs; thus allowing more time to be spent on ensuring higher response rates from their marketing campaigns.

The 40/40/20 Rule

Rules are fantastic because they dictate the way things actually are, thus removing a substantial amount of the guess work. This rule applies to direct marketing specifically, and states that 40% of a campaign's success depends on list selection; 40% on the offer; and 20% on creative execution.

Targeting your audience

Building and developing a mailing list is crucial to an effective campaign, but list buying can be fraught with pitfalls.

Don't be tempted into buying large amounts of untested data. Ask for a small sample to validate the list first, and do some research into the company selling it. Buying from Direct Marketing Association (DMA) members will guarantee that the list adheres to UK and EU marketing laws; and safeguards against the negative implications of using poor quality and illegal data.

The Call-to-Action

Developing your brand and increasing awareness is all well and good, but sending out a mailer without a call to action will be a waste of time. Tell your audience what you want them to do (come into the store with the mailer to receive a 15% discount; book a 30 minute free consultation); will compel them into action and increase the effectiveness of the campaign.

Use your content space – and a great copywriter - to tell your audience what they want to know: Where are the benefits? What are they key selling points that make your company stand out? Do you have any testimonials regarding what other businesses/customers have to say about your business?

Let your mailing house look after your print

By working with a mailing house that also offers print services, you'll be killing many birds with the same stone: Not only will they provide the design, management, and expert finishing to give your campaign the creative execution it needs, but they will also save time and money.

Follow-Up

Plan and implement a follow up message that ties in to your initial call-to-action. This will serve to build brand awareness, and ensure that your business is at the forefront of the target's mind when it's time for them to buy. Think about the menus you get from your local Chinese takeaway...it's usually the same one, but when you're in the mood for a takeaway, they'll immediately spring to mind!

Taking the time to effectively plan your strategy at the beginning of a campaign is well worth the money it saves in the long run. By working closely with industry professionals – from list brokers and copywriters; to designers, printers, and mailing houses – you will see a significant return on your investment.

What are your tips for direct marketing success? Share them by posting your comments below.

The use of direct mail campaigns dwindled substantially as people moved towards digital methods of contact and marketing. But times are changing and there is a renewed opportunity for organisations to take advantage of this marketing medium; many that have are reporting high levels of success.

6 reasons why direct mail is making a comeback:

1. There is less noise to compete with – As mentioned above, many organisations have made the mistake of jumping ship on the use of direct mail as a viable marketing tool. By running a direct mail campaign now you are doing something unusual.
   
   People are more desensitised to emails and online adverts than they are to direct mail. When a direct mail piece hits someone’s doormat or desk the recipient is much more likely to read it than they are a promotional email or online banner.
   
   
2. You can be more creative with direct mail campaign designs – A4, A5, full colour, smouldering black and white, glossy finish, matt finish, single sided, double sided, tri-fold... The choices are endless; you have the ultimate opportunity to be creative with your brand and how you represent your products and services.
   
   
3. Postal addresses are easier to find than email addresses – With data protection laws in place blocking marketers and business owners from using personal email addresses, it is now easier to reach the correct people by post. If you buy a mailing list you are much more likely to get the name and postal address of every single contact on the list. Likewise, if you contact a company to find out who the key point of contact is for your product or service, you are likely to get their name but not their email address. Many organisations don’t give them out.
   
   
4. Your first impression is much more than a subject line - If the outer packaging of your direct mail campaign is right, people have opened and read it before they know what they are doing. Promotional emails are often deleted before they are even opened.
   
   
5. The cost of digital marketing is increasing – Many people moved over to digital marketing methods such as email and social media because they were seen as more cost effective. This is now changing. Email platforms such as Constant Contact and Dotmailer and social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook have cottoned on that there is money to be made. They are making it increasingly difficult to market effectively for little or no cost.
   
   
6. The ‘noise’ online is unbearably loud – Flashing images, spam email, personal emails, pop up ads, these are all the things you are competing with when you take your marketing online. Physical post has diminished, people even get their bills by email now so you are competing with a lot less; plus everyone likes to have post to open.
   
   

There really is an argument for including direct mail in your business’ marketing plan. Get ahead of the curve and get your business in front of your customers today.

Within the EU there is a requirement to open up formerly closed markets, especially those that have been the subject of Government monopolies. One of the organisations most resistant to change, at least in Britain, has been the national operator responsible for the delivery of mail.

Ironically however, Britain has opened its mail market faster and further than most other member states, which has allowed (from 2000) the entry of independent (mostly foreign) postal delivery operations. They focused initially on the business-to-business (B2B) direct mail market, but as market liberalisation proceeded to full competition in 2006 they began to win share from Royal Mail in business-to-consumer (B2C) delivery.

While Royal Mail was restricted by its Royal Charter and its reliance upon public funding, privatised operators like PostNL in the Netherlands and Deutsche Post were making international acquisitions in related fields such as courier, parcels, freight and financial hand delivery. So well-known names like TNT (Dutch-owned) and DHL (German) are now entrenched in the UK and worldwide market. As Business Secretary Vince Cable put it when explaining Royal Mail’s flotation in 2013 –

"The government's decision on the sale is practical, it is logical, it is a commercial decision designed to put Royal Mail's future on a long-term sustainable business. It is consistent with developments elsewhere in Europe where privatised operators in Austria, Germany and Belgium produce profit margins far higher than the Royal Mail but have continued to provide high-quality and expanding services."

The new (70% privately-owned) Royal Mail must now play catch-up internationally, whilst seeking to be more competitive in an increasingly competitive home market. It is analogous to BT (which was demerged from it in 1981): both organisations are required to maintain a universal delivery service to all households, while being profitable. BT has reinvented itself, supplying and upgrading its network on a wholesale basis to its competitors, while reinvesting the profits of its legacy business in new fields. The challenge for Royal Mail is to do likewise.

What can direct mailing companies expect?

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) represents the direct mail industry, supplying £1 billion of Royal Mail's turnover, DMA Executive Director Chris Combemale warned the CWU postal workers’ union, when strike action was threatened (and averted) pre-Christmas 2013:

"Commercial users account for the biggest percentage of Royal Mail's turnover. Any disruption to service would quickly lead businesses to take their custom elsewhere, which is an outcome that would not benefit the postal workers that CWU represents."

It is inevitable that the future Royal Mail will be a smaller business, leaner and more competitive. Online shopping is its biggest growth area and it must work to secure the lion’s share of this market, as private mail declines. Royal Mail’s new ‘click and collect’ service uses Post Offices as pick-up points for deliveries, and it also recently gained approval to leave packages with neighbours, which other firms already did.

Meanwhile, direct marketers are watching with interest, and in many cases profiting, as new battlegrounds emerge.

The key issue on B2C direct mail is ‘downstream access’. Whereas competitors since 2006 have had the freedom to collect and sort mail from customers, they have largely then handed the items to Royal Mail for the downstream ‘final mile’ delivery that only it has the national network to accomplish.

New Downstream Access providers (DSA)

The first real DSA competitor has now emerged, offering end-to-end delivery for direct mail users: it is TNT, and it is gradually rolling out through London postcodes, delivering by bicycle three times a week and offering track and trace on each item. TNT already delivers 300 million items a month, and has ambitious plans to expand the staffing on this service from 1,000 to an eventual 20,000. To achieve this goal it is looking to bring in a co-investor.

Ofcom is the regulator of postal services, and Royal Mail is lobbying the body hard on the grounds that competitors like this are ‘cherry picking’ profitable city routes and are not offering an everyday delivery. It remains to be seen how this plays out. The Mayor of London is strongly supporting the new service.

How you can benefit

Royal Mail still has a strong advantage by virtue of its exemption from VAT, so that competitors must overcome a 20% competitive disadvantage. But within major cities companies like TNT (and smaller competitors like DX) can still achieve the economy of scale to provide attractive pricing, unless Ofcom should choose to shackle them by insisting that they deliver to wider (unprofitable) areas or deliver 6 days a week.

Using a professional mailing operation like Advanced Mailing Solutions (AMS) of Glasgow is the key to unlocking big savings on mailing costs, whichever way works out to be the best for your situation.

Assuming that your database is capable of being sorted (and if it is not then AMS can cleanse it for you) there is the opportunity to qualify for one of the categories of Mailsort rates, which achieve up to 47% discounts when compared against Royal Mail's standard tariff.

AMS will also work with you to establish whether it is economic to pre-sort your London mail, for example, to TNT or another DSA. The arrival of new competition can only be good for the industry and we can expect the new Royal Mail to defend its position with attractive rates and services.

All of the competitors are wooing direct mailing firms with extra incentives for Advertising Mail and Sustainable (environmentally-friendly) Mail.

Of course the mail savings that are on offer can soon be offset unless you have access to the ancillary mailing house services like polywrapping, envelope enclosing and postcard printing at cost-effective rates. Fortunately all of these services are on offer under one roof at AMS: together with free consultancy on how best to negotiate the maze of DSA and Royal Mail tariffs that are now on offer.

Paper Sizes

International standards ISO 216 and ISO 269 specify 3 different paper sizes

A Series

This is the most common and well known series of paper sizes, the largest of which is the A0 which has an area of one square metre. The series is defined in the following diagram were A1 is half the size of A0, A2 is half the size of A1 and so on.

(note all sizes are in mm)

B Series

C Series

applicability

Prior to the adoption of ISO 216, many different paper formats were used internationally. These formats did not fit into a coherent system and were defined in terms of non-metric units. The ISO 216 formats are organized around the ratio 1:√2; two sheets next to each other together have the same ratio, sideways. This simplifies copying two A4 sheets in reduced size on one, and copying an A4 sheet in magnified size on an A3 sheet or copying half an A4 sheet in magnified size on an A4 sheet. The principal countries not generally using the ISO paper sizes are the United States of America and Canada, which use the Letter, Legal, and Executive system. (Canada uses a P-series of sizes, which are the American paper sizes rounded to metric dimensions.)

 paper folds

single, half, V-fold	letter, C-fold	accordion, Z-fold	double parallel fold
cross fold	half accordion fold	gate fold

Advanced Mailing Solutions today signs a new lease on additional premises within the Company's existing business park. This now takes the East Kilbride-based firm's storage and production facility to more than 12,000 sq ft and greatly enhances the Company’s warehousing capability.

The company's mailing address and contacts details remain unchanged by this latest development.