Why do brands spend so much time and money on photoshoots? Because images matter a lot in marketing. The brain processes pictures first. But words matter, too. Alongside those great photos and great design is the copy on the page or screen. And this copy must be interesting, thoughtful and relevant. Most importantly, it must be engaging – driving your reader to take a very specific action (shop, donate, learn more, you get the idea). Sounds time-consuming to come up with just the right words, doesn’t it? It is. But like the fabulous photos your brand captures, engaging copy is another investment that’s well worth it. Because action from your reader means dolla dolla bills for your brand. Here are five tips to help you create copy that truly engages. go to: https://www.jschmid.com/blog/breakthrough-creative-gimme-5/

As part of its ongoing mission to ensure consumers are given a clear choice in how they receive essential information — on paper or digitally — and that they are not charged extra for paper bills and statements, Keep Me Posted (KMP) North America is investigating how large corporations are addressing consumer needs and expectations. Most recently, KMP looked at the billing practices of the top 10 Fortune 500 telecommunications companies to see how they align with KMP’s best practices for essential communications, which include: *No charges or other penalties for choosing paper bills *Prior consumer consent required before ceasing to send paper documents *No change in paper bill frequency without prior agreement *No difficulty to revert back to paper correspondence *Continued access to online options. The good news is that eight of America’s top 10 telecommunications conglomerates put their customers’ communication preferences first, do so without fees and make information on their practices easily accessible.

Simplicity in marketing isn’t easy to achieve but making engagement easy can be fairly simple. That sentence is a brain twister, right? Let me untangle the words. ‘Simple’ and ‘Easy’ are two different things, and both are critically important when it comes to effective marketing. Simple means making something uncomplicated, like expressing a brand proposition in just a few words. Easy means achieving something without effort, like creating an intuitive check-out funnel. The two concepts of simplicity and ease have been foundational in successful marketing for a long time. But if you consider that consumer attention span is only about 8 seconds, (down 30% from 2000), it makes focusing on simplicity and ease imperative. read more at: https://www.jschmid.com/blog/breakthrough-creative-art-of-simplicity/

Monday, Sept 14, 2020 Attend as our guest for FREE: Use code GUEST20 We’re all trying to sell something to someone. We have a great product, a great service, or a can’t-miss promotion that we want people to know about. We’ve decided to reach them through direct mail. But what should we say? What do we show? How do we stand out from all the other messages in the mailbox? And how do we do it in a matter of seconds? A smart strategy, a great mailing list and a stellar offer don’t mean anything if your creative execution is weak. There are certain creative secrets that have been proven through neuroscience that will increase the likelihood of your direct mail piece getting noticed and driving your customers to action. Simply following these four powerful recommendations will increase your chances of success. Good creative matters. Find out the secrets of how to do it. register at: https://www.ana.net/membersconference/register/id/MOC-SEP20E5

With back-to-school schedules everywhere in continual flux, this BTS shopping season has gotten as unpredictable as hurricane tracking. While the National Retailer Federation reports a large increase in consumer spending as parents buy pricey new laptops and desks for home schoolrooms, national advertisers are taking a hall pass. Kantar says advertising spending for back-to-school is off 70% so far this year. The best word for consumer sentiment is still confusion. Kantar’s polling finds 13% of consumers are comfortable sending children back to school “as soon as possible,” 14% want to wait more than six months, and 25% fall somewhere in between one and five months. More than half of also say they don’t know.

We’ve passed the six-month mark of living through a global pandemic. I’m not sure it’s an anniversary worth celebrating – it’s more of a ‘day-that-will-live-in-infamy’ type. In the retail world and working with consumer-facing brands, we’ve observed that many with a direct-to-consumer orientation have fared well. In contrast, the broader spectrum of the retail and consumer services sector has not. I’ll try to be as diplomatic as possible here – if there’s one thing Americans don’t like, it’s being told what to do. We tend to think of ourselves, our families, and our immediate communities – and probably in that order – as the best sources of information. State and federal guidelines tend to (at least initially) be met with resistance, especially when those guidelines affect one’s ability to earn a living, visit with family and loved ones, or eat a meal indoors at a restaurant. What the pandemic has revealed is simple: culture matters. Congregating limitations and business closure edicts, and the delay in loosening them, have put our culture on ice. Although, not entirely. read more at: https://cohereone.com/the-pandemic-matters-of-culture-and-why-direct-to-consumer-brands-are-thriving/

The opening session for the final day of the Virtual Inkjet Summit focused on direct mail, and what marketing will look like in a post-pandemic future. COVID-19 has reshaped how brands communicate with consumers in profound ways, and inkjet is, in many ways, perfectly positioned to be the technology that helps them reconnect in very personal, meaningful ways. Barb Pellow, manager, Pellow and Partners, sat down with Darrin Wilen, president of Wilen Direct, to discuss how the current climate has re-shaped business, and what that means for direct mail’s future, as well as the role inkjet will play. Pellow noted that one thing to keep in mind is that while some industries, such as travel, or membership mailings to local events or attractions, has dropped off dramatically over the past six months, the news isn’t all bad. In fact, some markets, such as health care, elder care services, personal care products, and educational products, among others, have actually see an increase in mailings.

Chances are, you’re currently trying to reach your audience in a variety of ways. Maybe digital ads, search, social media, catalog, direct mail and your retail environment. What if you could tie all those efforts together with a single creative concept—a “Big Idea” that unifies all of those touch points? And what if that consistent message was delivered in such a unique and bold way that you now stood out from the competition? People now notice you. They remember you. And now they will consider you. THAT’S the power of a campaign. Need some help getting started? Read our 8-part series at: https://www.jschmid.com/services/campaigns/

We’ve all seen people go crazy for tiny houses. There’s a reason for that: smaller means simpler, quicker to build, easier on the budget. Well, the same concept works for campaigns. It’s possible to build a small, agile campaign that reaches a portion of your audience and prospects too, with a friendlier bottom line. However, as with tiny houses, you still need a strategy, skill and planning to build it. Even if it is pocket-sized. It’s also useful for testing creative messages and visuals to gauge response before a big rollout. So what are the essential parts of a campaign, and how can you scale budget? Let’s take a look. Click Read More below

According to the Joint Industry Committee for Mail (JICMail), during Q2 the average piece of direct mail was interacted with 4.58 times, an 11% increase year-on-year and a record high since JICMail began tracking mail activity in Q2 2017. Door drops also garnered record levels of consumer engagement, with the average item interacted with 3.19 times, which represents 15% growth year-on-year. Business mail, essentially addressed mail that contains some form of bill or statement, also reported higher interaction figures, up 7% to 4.87 times. The various channels all recorded significant increases in the amount of time they live in the home with all three effectively extending their life-span by a day year-on-year: DM 8.5 days; door drops 6.9 days and business mail 9.6 days.

Now more than ever, amidst a global pandemic, people are leaving crowded cities and opting for a more suburban lifestyle where housing is more affordable, the risk of human interaction is less, and working from home is the new norm. Irrespective of what we’re seeing in recent months however, people are always moving. As marketers, it’s important that we follow our customers and greet them at their new home with the right content, since often times, a move can be a trigger for a purchase event. Working with several home furnishing brands, we are creating impactful and interesting new mover programs to stand out from more traditional mailings and to cater to their life event. This mail piece is a strong brand statement and will highlight a discount offer separate from other sales that may occur during that timeframe. Our clients are experiencing great success by creating content and messaging relevant to this new life event. In addition, we also take it step further – we identify the pre-movers. click read more below for the rest of the story

We all have our favorite marketing campaigns. Brilliant creative and flawless execution make them both memorable and compelling. Most of us can probably recite copy and tag lines from our favorites with little effort. Great campaigns stick with us long after they’ve run their course. But ultimately, the success of any marketing campaign is measured not by how memorable it is, but by how well it achieves its objective. Marketing campaigns can include a variety of elements: advertising, promotion, merchandising, public relations and social media. They can be splashy and costly or subtle and inexpensive. Big budgets don’t automatically guarantee success. Some of the most effective campaigns cost relatively little to produce and run. Marketing campaigns support a number of objectives. The most common types of campaigns include: click read more below

We’ve spent the last several weeks bringing you tips and tools to create a campaign that’s not only exciting, but memorable. Because regardless of your goal – changing perception, creating brand awareness, boosting social media engagement or reactivating lapsed customers – nothing will happen if your campaign fails to grab attention and leave customers with a clear takeaway. So now that you’re armed with the info you need (see Campaign Building Blocks, Parts 1-5), let’s dive into a few of the best ones. Which B2C and B2B brands have been successful in delivering killer campaigns that connect on a basic, human level? Grab your coffee (or cocktail, depending on what time you’re reading this) and we’ll take you through three well-executed examples. see the top 3 at: https://www.jschmid.com/blog/campaign-building-bloacks-killer-campaigns/

Marketing in a pandemic…how the heck do you do that?? A lot of us in the marketing world – including yours truly – have given this question quite a bit of thought since the start of the novel coronavirus. It’s been a crazy, frightening and ever-changing situation that seems to still be evolving more than half a year since it began. With many Americans cutting down their spending at this time, every blog post, advertisement or social media post might make you feel like Prince John and The Sheriff of Nottingham – the infamous villains in Robin Hood who regularly take advantage of the people of Nottinghamshire. In reality, all you really want to do is get the word out in a way that’s ethical, responsible and connects your product or service to people who feel it will make their life better. So, how do you responsibly go about marketing in a pandemic? click read more below...

Just a reminder to sign up for the upcoming free webinar, Rethinking Catalogs: New Technology, New Processes, New Economics, to be held on August 10th at 1:00 pm Eastern Time. Lands’ End Creative Director Daniel Hetzer and Inkjet Insight Founding Partner Elizabeth Gooding will discuss how catalog creative and production processes are adapting to new customer attitudes, technical capabilities and economic realities. Takeaways: • How shifting customer attitudes are affecting retail buying patterns • Objective approaches to measuring catalog and direct mail effectiveness • The impact of Covid-19 on cataloging • Trends toward personalization and customization that predate the pandemic and those that can be used effectively and efficiently • Consideration of new strategies for when to print, what to print and how to print. For more info and to register go to: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6eXQly3hTnmwD8mamsUJhg

As brands jump on the hashtag brand-wagon, one wonders if the effort truly makes a difference to the bottom line. Short answer? Absolutely. But, have some brands experienced major fails at achieving an ROI? Absolutely. Does it take a lot of effort and resources to get it right? Absolutely. Why even bother? Campaigns are an excellent tool to create brand awareness, drive traffic, engage customers, promote a product or service, boost social media followers and ultimately helps track and quantify your content. For a stale brand, a brand campaign is the perfect opportunity to blow new life into your business. click read more below to continue

One of the (many) advantages of working with CohereOne is the ability to aggregate data points from multiple sources to gain a clearer view on what can improve results for our clients. A strategy that has consistently stood out when we review results is the power of using “digital indicators” to identify customers who are more engaged with the brand when making selections on who to mail. We have found three that have proven to work in most cases: Email Opt-in vs. Opt-out: flagging your buyers on whether they have opted out of email marketing is a sure indication that they will not perform as well as buyers vs. those who have continued to hear from you. This delta is as high as 170% better for the opt-in buyers for one of our clients! click read more below for the rest...

Republican Senator Josh Hawley, a frequent critic of tech companies, has unveiled a bill that would require web publishers to avoid personalized advertising in order to maintain their protections from lawsuits based on users' speech. “Big Tech’s manipulative advertising regime comes with a massive hidden price tag for consumers while providing almost no return to anyone but themselves,” the Missouri lawmaker stated Tuesday. His proposed “Behavioral Advertising Decisions Are Downgrading Services (BAD ADS) Act” would strip large web companies of the protection of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if the companies either engage in what he calls “behavioral advertising,” or allow users' data to be collected for such advertising.

Why are marketing campaigns so effective? What is the secret behind the good ones that people remember and talk about (REI’s “Opt Outside”)? Quite simply, a BIG IDEA. The best marketing and advertising over the decades have always been driven by a singular great idea (“Got Milk?”). A core idea that ties everything together. An idea that resonates with the audience and makes them think about your product or service in a different way. Remove that big idea and all you’re doing is selling products, just like the other brands. Blah. But when you build your marketing efforts around a campaign, and use that “big idea” consistently across all touch points, it’s more likely to get noticed, more likely to be remembered, and more likely to engage people on a human level. In other words, campaigns work. It’s no secret that I’m a huge Beatles fan, so once again, I will use them as a way of illustrating my point. When Paul McCartney was thinking about a different way to go about recording a new album in 1966, he came up with a big idea that would drive the entire creative process. What if the four lads took on a different persona, actually changing the name of the band? What if they reinvented their identity just this one time? much more at: https://www.jschmid.com/blog/campaign-building-blocks-the-big-idea/

The ACMA is excited to cosponsor the upcoming webinar, Rethinking Catalogs: New Technology, New Processes, New Economics, to be held on August 10th at 1:00 pm Eastern Time. Lands’ End Creative Director Daniel Hetzer and Inkjet Insight Founding Partner Elizabeth Gooding will discuss how catalog creative and production processes are adapting to new customer attitudes, technical capabilities and economic realities. Takeaways: •How shifting customer attitudes are affecting retail buying patterns •Objective approaches to measuring catalog and direct mail effectiveness •The impact of Covid-19 on cataloging •Trends toward personalization and customization that predate the pandemic and those that can be used effectively and efficiently •Consideration of new strategies for when to print, what to print and how to print. Register at: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6eXQly3hTnmwD8mamsUJhg

It's the most responsive marketing channel. It reaches people at home and makes them feel good. Direct Mail still delivers. Learn how direct mail is driving results and how to apply it to your everyday marketing strategies through direct mail retargeting. see great information at: https://www.navistone.com/blog/direct-mail-still-delivers

When we first think of brand campaigns, what immediately comes to mind are all the greats. You know the ones. Got Milk. Just Do It. But there have been some great B2B campaigns, too. Remember Staples’ That Was Easy? So simple it was brilliant. It tied Staples directly to the solution, and everyone from CEOs to summer interns had one on their desk. B2B marketers can and should consider campaigns as powerful tools in their arsenal. If done well, they build brand awareness; they can galvanize all your marketing channels around a specific hook, idea and goal; and provide the steady drumbeat of a consistent message to the right audience. To that end, the building blocks of a successful B2B campaign follow the same tenets as a B2C campaign. But there are some considerations to keep in mind when developing a campaign for a business audience. learn more at: https://www.jschmid.com/blog/campaign-building-blocks-b2b-success/

Two Sides are excited to announce its newest member, the Marketing Agency, Edit, part of the Kin and Carta plc. Edit are a bunch of talented data scientists, media experts, and technology architects who create marketing that matters by obsessing about less. They provide print media to their clients around the world, with a focus on accurately targeting the right audience, with the right message, at the right time. “Edit is delighted to become a member. We look forward to working with Two Sides to promote the sustainable story of print media and enhance our own sustainability story,” says Head of Media Solutions, Sarah Burns.

Join PhillyDMA on Wednesday, July 29th for “Innovative Direct Mail: How to Drive Open Rates with Compelling Envelopes!" The PhillyDMA is proud to host Jim King - VP of Sales, Strategic Accounts at Cenveo - to discuss the latest envelope treatments used to increase package opening rates. Direct marketers who want to drive response will not want to miss out on the educational content and the lively networking! We will see you there. Tickets: $5.00 PDMA Member $10.00 Non-PDMA Member register at: https://phillydma.starchapter.com/meet-reg1.php?id=5

Crafting memorable creative that will compel and delight an audience is likely the most challenging task in the campaign process. Without a creative, brand-right theme, the campaign won’t get traction and meet objectives. That said, coordinating and executing the big idea is just as important. If the campaign isn’t organized and executed well the investment will be wasted. Here are the five essential steps for getting a marketing campaign off the ground: https://www.jschmid.com/blog/campaign-building-blocks-coordinate-your-campaign/

Web accessibility lawsuits are occurring at an alarming pace. Understanding the legal and technical guidelines of what is mandated is often tricky and confusing. Although the ADA (Americans with Disability Act) laws don’t formally specify compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) set of technical standards, private business sites have to be accessible, and it’s well-accepted that compliance with WCAG is the best way to achieve that standard. Unfortunately, this growing trend in claims is also due in part to the significant complexity in implementing the WCAG guidelines. As a result, the painful reality is that the majority of sites do not meet these standards. Resolving issues manually or without technical expertise can be a struggle or even cause additional accessibility problems. Further complicating matters is that by its nature, ecommerce is driven by dynamic change, continually coming in from all directions. Often, the number of people contributing to the site increases the challenge to remain in compliance. In this environment, not having a plan to protect your business from these accessibility claims could leave merchants with significant legal exposure.

The following article is part of an ongoing series from J.Schmid with the critical elements and insights you need to strategize, execute and launch successful omnichannel campaigns. Watch your email and follow #CampaignBuildingBlocks on social media to keep up with the full story. Any successful campaign, at its core, is about storytelling. The iconic signature photo. The memorable language. The heart-tugging anthem video. The humorous Instagram posts. Content … it’s what tells your campaign story. How you engage on a sensory level. How you connect with your audience. How you use content is vital to the effectiveness of the campaign. Fortunately, there are more ways than ever to capture engaging content. And with increasingly tighter budgets, it’s more important than ever to maximize your efforts while saving money.

In the last two blogs written by Michelle Houston, she covered the importance of using Contribution Per Order (CPO), instead of ROAS when evaluating the performance of marketing programs. At the end of one of those blogs, she talked about the importance of also assessing and understanding the significance of lifetime value (LTV) as part of the equation. I wanted to continue that thread and take it a step further by incorporating LTV as the last step of the proper analysis into the equation. As covered in past discussions, LTV is an important metric to track as it will vary widely by acquisition source. When applied to the first order for a new customer, CPO is the equivalent to cost or profit per customer acquired. This will vary by acquisition source as well. When CPO is combined with LTV, those metrics are a powerful tool in driving your company in the right direction (or wrong direction if you’re not careful). In the analysis below, we can evaluate the total effect that CPO and LTV have on the current and future business.

As we come out of lock-down, more opportunities for businesses are emerging and it’s important for marketers to seize them. Direct mail is perfect for doing that as it can build more personal connections with the people who value your brand. It’s a topic we recently spoke about in our article ‘Direct mail provides opportunity for brands to cut through the noise‘. Mail is highly targeted and has a format which enables a longer narrative, perfect for sparking conversations. People like receiving, sharing and discussing it. And it is measurable – so you can track and optimise your campaigns.

Last week I wrote an article about why Contribution Per Order (CPO) should be the critical revenue metric that businesses use rather than Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). As a reminder, while ROAS is an efficient measuring metric, it cannot assign health to a channel, making it a relatively useless tool. In contrast to ROAS, Contribution Per Order (CPO) brings in the magnitude of the campaign segment targeted. This metric subtracts the marketing cost and cost of goods from each order to determine how profitable each of those segments is contributing to top-line demand and bottom-line profits. In one of my side comments in this blog, I mentioned the need to analyze Paid Search programs utilizing the same metrics and by further separating into branded terms vs. non-branded terms. In a recent year-end seasonal review with one of my clients, Paid Search was only reporting at a macro level (combining branded and non-branded search), which can be misleading. As shown below, Paid Search has a relatively positive CPO compared to traditional print prospecting (+$1.16 vs. -$2.15). Without understanding the full impact, this client was considering marketing decisions to expand Paid Search, reduce print prospecting, and potentially eliminate print programs—leading to potentially devastating results.

At this time, all mailing promotions are proceeding as scheduled with no changes. We will continue to evaluate existing and upcoming promotions in light of the rapidly changing circumstances due to COVID-19. If changes to an existing or upcoming promotion occur, notice will be provided in an Industry Alert and posted here, on our main PostalPro Promotion page: https://postalpro.usps.com/promotions Building upon the success of the Promotions Calendars over the last few years, the Postal Service has developed a Promotions Calendar for Calendar Year (CY) 2020. The 2020 Promotions continue to encourage marketers, printers, and mailers to utilize new technology and print techniques that enhance the traditional benefits of a physical mailpiece. This in turn can drive higher response rates and increase the overall return on the mailer’s investment in mail. By encouraging the use of technologies integrated in mail, the Postal Service expects to increase the value of direct mail and retain the volumes of transactional mail, thereby ensuring long-term product growth.

More often than not, we engage with seasoned ecommerce professionals tasked with running print programs while simultaneously holding some measure of responsibility for Profit & Loss statements. And as such, they tend to look at performance metrics with a ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) lens instead of a more critical metric – Contribution Per Order (CPO). Why is that important, and why does ROAS lack adequate insight as a key metric? Let me explain. While ROAS is an efficient measuring metric, it cannot assign health to a channel, making it a relatively useless tool. The reality is it could be hurting your business as a primary form of indicator. ROAS can't tell you how much money you are making for every order received. As an example, a ROAS of 6x is more efficient than a ROAS of 5x, but that doesn't mean you made more money (or any money). A ROAS of 6x on $10 did not make you more money than a ROAS of 5x on $10,000,000. The volume grew top-line demand, but it did not increase profits. In contrast to ROAS, Contribution Per Order (CPO) brings in the magnitude of the campaign segment targeted (marketing cost and cost of goods). This metric will help with your payroll and to keep the lights on – in other words -- adding top-line demand and bottom-line profits.

Three online advertisers are suing Google for allegedly violating antitrust laws by monopolizing "digital advertising markets." “Google leveraged its stranglehold on online search and search advertising to gain an illegal monopoly in brokering display advertising on other companies’ websites,” the marketers allege in a class-action complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The case was filed on behalf of Washington, D.C. tour company Grand Atlas Tours, Delray Beach, Florida-based Prana Pets (which sells herbs for dogs and cats) and the San Francisco law firm Hanson Law. They claim Google “achieved this market dominance in part by acquiring rivals in the online advertising space, conditioning access to its search-results data and YouTube video advertising platform upon the purchase of its separate display advertising services, and ensuring those systems were not compatible with those of its competitors in online advertising."

Understanding how to stand out in the mailbox is more important than ever in 2020 and beyond, especially so because of today’s competition for consumer attention. In fact, a 2015 study said the average American is exposed to anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000 ads per day. That’s madness! With the large majority of these being digital ads, this provides a huge opportunity for direct mail and print marketing campaigns. Though the average person’s mailbox is much less crowded now than it has been in decades, this competition for consumer attention is more fierce than it has ever been. That’s why when it comes to your direct mail marketing campaign, you need to be very calculated in your approach; understanding cost, attribution, average ROI and the overall health of your house file are vital considerations that must occur with the launch of any successful direct mail program. Click Read More below for details