Is the Time Right for Digital Postal Mail?

By Cary Sherburne
Published: August 3, 2012

The recent financial announcement by Zumbox caught my attention, especially in light of the uncertain future of the USPS. While Zumbox isn’t the only digital postal game in town, it arguably has the largest consumer participation in the U.S., considering that Pitney Bowes’ Volly has yet to fully launch. However, since the firm will not confirm how many actual U.S. households are using its digital mailboxes, it is difficult to say for sure. I checked in with Andy Jolls, SVP of Consumer Marketing for Zumbox, to see what is new with the company and to gain their insight into this evolving part of the marketplace.

WTT: Andy, why do you think this is the right time for digital postal mail?

AJ: What’s very clear about this category and this opportunity is that no one disagrees that this is going to happen. We are going to see the day when a lot of what comes to you in physical form in the mail will transfer into digital form. We are seeing the same thing happen with music, books and photos, and mail is the last piece of the pie. The question is the timing. I think there is a combination of factors, including what’s happening with the USPS and the move toward a more digital lifestyle with the growing adoption of smartphones and tablets. This creates an interesting pivot point. Consumers have to move from familiarization to trust development and experimentation, and finally to acceptance. I think people are much more comfortable these days with digital and online and are moving into that acceptance phase.

WTT: What do you think specifically attracted Computershare to make the most recent investment in Zumbox?

AJ: Investors realize that paper mail is both a really big problem and a big opportunity. In the case of Computershare, the leading transfer agent for Fortune 500 companies globally, they were able to see what it was like to work with us as a result of an Australian joint venture we were involved in with them. They got to learn more about our approach, and they realized they have a big problem to solve that Zumbox could help with. The documents they send out are very bulky and expensive, and they were looking for a digital solution for themselves. They like to make investments in disruptive technologies like ours, and that all led to this announcement.

WTT: This may be a bit of an obvious question, but what sets you apart from the USPS?

AJ: The USPS is fundamentally in the logistics business and we are in the communications business. We are never going to try to get into the business of trying to figure out how to ship medications to people who need them, as an example. I see them as continuing to have an important role. But they are prohibited from entering the digital business by regulation. It would literally take an act of Congress for them to enter the digital space. To be fair to them, it’s not that they are not thinking about it. They are.

WTT: And if they really wanted to pursue it, they might be able to get an act of Congress. But these things don’t move quickly, that’s for sure. We have been talking about some form of digital mail in some form or another for a decade now, starting with electronic bill presentment and payment. Why do you think EBPP adoption has been so much slower than everyone thought it would be?

AJ: I think the market has evolved in a less-than-efficient way. It is too siloed. Consumers really don’t want to have to go to a dozen different web site to view and pay their bills, which are already aggregated in their physical mailboxes. And every issuer has different retention policies—for example, how long can you access your electronic bank statement before it is archived? When you think about music and how that market moved to digital, the service was an upgrade. I went from 100s of CDs to music at my fingertips. We want to do a similar thing with mail, move it from pull and disparate, where the consumer has to go out and pull from different sources, to push and aggregated. And mailers are starting to wake up to the fact that this is what consumers want. The same thing is happening in the receipt space. Nordstrom or Apple or the Gap will email you a receipt, and at first you think that is cool, but imagine getting email receipts for everything you purchase, down to a cup of coffee. It would be really annoying after a while and the consumer doesn’t get a great experience.

WTT: So you won’t reveal consumer usage numbers for competitive reasons. But what can you share with us along those lines?

AJ: I can tell you that through the providers we have committed to us, we have coverage for 60 million Americans through a network of third-party service providers. One challenge in putting that coverage together was that it had to be a process that was not IT intensive for the mailers, and we have been able to do that. We already have digital mailboxes set up for nearly every household in America. Service providers like Kubra and DST can already be sending—and are already sending—digital mail to Digital Postal Mailboxes.

WTT: So the primary focus is getting to paperless?

AJ: No, it is more than that. It is solving a digital problem. A lot of companies have a low paperless adoption rate, and a low digital interaction rate. The only way they interact with consumers today is through physical statements. We realized that by building an address-based system, we have a much larger addressable market. We have some competitors that are account based, where you have to provide your online user name and password as part of the registration process, and ultimately, I believe that approach will capture much smaller piece of the market. More than 60% of Americans don’t have user names and passwords for all or some of their accounts. They might for their bank account, but on average they have 20 accounts and they don’t have coverage past a few accounts. With our process, we verify that you are who you say you are, and that you actually live at that address. People who travel a lot, have secondary residences, live outside the country, get lots of mail—these are the people that have the pain points that can be solved by a service such as Digital Postal Mail.

WTT: How do you see Pitney Bowes’ Volly playing in the market? They indicate they plan to go live in the 4^th quarter of this year.

AJ: I can’t even answer that question since it is not operational yet, and we really don’t know the details. But I will say that at Zumbox, we believe we have a responsibility for building a category. It isn’t just about building a company. And Pitney Bowes’ participation with Volly validates the category.

WTT: What is your financial model? Consumers don’t pay anything for the service, right?

AJ: We make money when the issuing companies save money. A consumer has to sign up for the service and elect to go paperless on a particular document, and when they do that, if that consumer is not already paperless with the company, then we essentially charge digital postage. A cable bill might cost 40 cents for a company to mail out, including postage, printing etc., and what we are charging is substantially less than that. We also have volume pricing for large mailers. Digital Postal Mail can save corporations up to 70% on delivery costs, while having the added advantage of enhancing interactions with their customers.

 

A Few Trends that Got Us to Where We Are
By Frank Romano

There is no better word than "printer." It tells you exactly what a company does. Or does it? Look at the many new services that printers are providing, from database and digital asset management to web- and CD-based conversions, plus digital printing and even mailing services. Printers are providing more value-added services that go beyond paper. They are evolving into new kinds of companies. Here are some of the steps that got us to this point.

1. Digital links to customers
There was one trend that profoundly changed to the printing industry-electronic delivery of files. In the past, the originator delivered manuscript and then saw hot metal proofs; later they delivered mechanicals and then saw film proofs. The printer controlled the pre-press process and then desktop publishing became mainstream and the printer lost that control.

This loss coincided with the evolution of personal computer "shrink-wrapped" software and standardized page description languages. Jobs could be designed and produced by the oroginator and then sent to literally any printer. In the past the printer controlled the metal and later the film; the printer essentially "owned" the job. Today, the customer owns the job.

Once the job was in standardized form, it had to be delivered to the printer. We evolved from messengers and overnight delivery services that delivered disks of all kinds to telecommunications. Today, jobs are entered electronically and sent over high-speed telecommunications lines-Internet or Intranet -and within a few years we will be completely diskless. The ex-Fed-Ex age is moving us closer to delivery of jobs . . . yesterday.

Today, 8% of all print is delivered within a day. By 2020, 30% of all print will be delivered within a day.

Telecommunications allows the originator to deliver the job at the last moment. Now they expect printing at the last moment as well.

Of all the trends, this is the one that has affected all other trends. Once jobs are in electronic form, new methods of printing and publishing become possible. New approaches to job management and job tracking become possible. All jobs become digital and that ushers in a new age for printers.

2. Color is hot
Only a decade ago most pages were black and white. But now almost all newspapers have shifted to color reproduction, primarily for advertising. Color is also splashed on every page of magazines and catalogs. It is hard to find a page that is not color. Full color is growing: from 48% of all pages today, it grows to 75% of all print pages by 2020.

There is a projected increase in 5-color printing or more-mostly for brand (spot) colors like Pantone. We will need better ways of managing color as print competes with electronic media. There will be increasing opportunity to add color to the black and white pages that remain.

3. Digital printing
Toner- and inkjet-printing require no makeready and are thus almost instantaneous in production. Over the next decade ink-based printing will yield some volumes to new printing technologies. Hot metal/letterpress printing was wiped out by offset lithography, but digital printing may not completely wipe out offset.

4. E-business or Web To Print
There is good e-commerce and evil e-commerce. The evil e-commerce tried to insinuate itself between the printer and their customers. But print jobs are too complex to specify only in electronic form. The sales professional is an important part of the print buying process. However, simple print jobs lend themselves to web ordering.

Almost half of all printing is purchased by so-called "large" companies and they will be prone to automating the print buy. This can be aided by the good e-commerce, which is essentially a new way of communicating. We use cell phones and pagers to track jobs and communicate changes. We foresee the role of the Internet in improving that communication. 37% of all print is purchased by the 1,000 largest U.S. companies and we expect that they will apply various approaches to e-commerce.

5. Computer-to-Plate on- and off-press
It was not CTP that changed the world. CTP is merely the tip of a giant iceberg called "workflow." CTP includes

1. Elimination of the problems caused by film-to-plate.
2. Faster registration because CTP places dots more accurately.
3. Elimination of steps to get jobs on press faster.
4. Improved quality.

CTP required that the entire job was in electronic form. It comes down to process automation which allows faster makeready and faster production. At the same time, run lengths are tending downwards. By 2012, 43% of all print will be in runs under 2,000 copies. This means that new and more efficient methods will have to be applied.

6. Digits to dots to dock-workflow
We now have a production continuum from the digital page to the finished product. Files include electronic job tickets for automatic processing through various steps in the digital workflow, as well as linking customers and services like never before. The result is automation from start to finish.

The reason has to do with the nature of jobs-many are complex, with specialized coating or imprinting requirements. Print is not all flat sheets and complex and very complex jobs account for 32% of job volume, but 60% of job revenue. Printers can add value to complex jobs because there are so many production steps. Most importantly, we use the process that is appropriate to the job. Gravure may print the editorial section of National Geographic, but offset is used for covers and advertising sections. Look for more activity in "hybrid" presses-offset and digital.

Direct Mail Tells and Sells Simultaneously

One of the older sayings in the sales game is “Telling isn’t Selling”. This means that if you’re just rattling on about how wonderful your product or service is to a customer without first getting to know his or her needs and wants; you’re wasting everybody’s time. Direct mail marketing has the ability to tell and sell simultaneously.

If you’re not telling a customer about your product or service you definitely won’t sell it! We are after all, not therapists sitting in front of the prospect and doing nothing but asking questions. A client will get pretty bored with that sooner rather than later.

Direct mail marketing through the targeted lead list gets to who is most likely ready and able to purchase your good or service. What you need is intelligence about your customer. These profiles are not 100% accurate (there is always the occasional 70 year old who can’t wait to get their hands on the new Halo game) but they should be accurate enough to give you an idea of who will be most receptive to your message.

Direct marketing is the science and art of using a combination of the right message along with the proper audience to maximize the effectiveness of the “telling”. Premier Advantage Marketing has access to customer lists that can be tailored to a specific demographic or profile. This along with creatively structuring a compelling message and offer will make the best use of your direct marketing dollar.

Premier Advantage Marketing primarily uses direct mail for tangibility and personalization. It can also be very effectively leveraged in a multi-channel marketing program along with digital and other media.

Using direct marketing targeted lead generation will get you to the “telling” part of your message with a much better chance of finding somebody willing to listen. This makes the “selling” part much easier when it is to a receptive audience. Now telling really is selling.

12 FAST DIRECT MAIL TESTS FOR CHEAPSKATES

Source: Dean Rieck, Direct Creative Blog 

So you want to boost your direct mail response? Okay, just start shoveling money into a few dozen tests and …

What’s that? You don’t have a big budget for all the testing you’d love to do? You don’t have time to run a bunch of tests? No problem.

One of the great things about direct mail is that, with just a little ingenuity, you can test quickly and on the cheap to improve your results.

Here are 12 quick and easy testing ideas for cheapskates:

Change your outer envelope. A new color or a different size may be all it takes to get people to take a second look at a package they’ve seen too many times. You can also try switching from a teaser envelope to a plain one or vice versa. And faux express envelopes are often worth a test.

Test a new letter. It can be an all-new letter from scratch. Or a longer version of your current letter with more detail. Or a shorter version with less detail. Or a modified version with a new spin on the headlines and opening paragraphs.

Remove your brochure. Believe it or not, response often picks up without that elaborate brochure. It may be that removing the brochure simply gets people to read the letter more thoroughly. This doesn’t always work, but as tests go, you can’t get any simpler.

Include a stand-alone reply form. You should be doing this anyway, but if not, try it. It doesn’t matter if another piece already has a reply form. This is just a test. And if it works, you can make further modifications later.

Insert a lift note. This is an easy way to overcome a major objection or highlight a key benefit. Just remember to keep it short and have it signed by someone other than the person who signs the main letter. If you have a celebrity or authority who can sign it, all the better.

Strengthen your offer. This is where you can usually make the most difference. All things being equal, the best offer you can make is a free trial. The second best is a money-back guarantee. If you don’t want to change your offer completely, try turning it into a yes/no offer, or a yes/maybe offer where “yes” is a purchase and “maybe” is a request for more information. Of course, sweepstakes can always add a lift, but your customer quality will usually go downhill.

Offer something free. It’s generally better than discounting your product and gives you the opportunity to use the magic word “FREE.” It can be a free gift, free shipping, free add-ons, free subscription to your newsletter or catalog, whatever.

Add a time limit. This almost always boosts response. You can connect the time limit to your main offer or to your premium. One easy way to add this to a preexisting package or mailer is to create a simple piece of art that looks like you’ve rubber-stamped the deadline. It should be ugly and realistic.

Highlight your guarantee. In a package, you should feature it prominently in the letter, brochure, and order form. If your guarantee is strong—and it should be—you can also create an insert or lift note that explains your guarantee in detail. In a self-mailer, you should place your guarantee on the primary selling panel and on the reply panel.

Build a package around your self-mailer. You’ll need an outer envelope, basic letter, reply form, and BRE. Add your self-mailer as the brochure and presto! You have a complete direct mail package. It’s not an ideal solution but good enough for a quick test.

Mail your print ad. Just print it, fold it, and insert it into a plain envelope with a little note that says something like, “I thought you would find this interesting” or “Try this. It works.” You might also try adding a BRE or reply envelope with a live stamp to help ease response. You may even try adding a reply form so people don’t have to cut out the coupon.

Try the two-step. First mail a postcard or small self-mailer offering free information on your product. Then fulfill requests with your direct mail package. Just make sure to modify the package with envelope copy that says something like, “Here’s the information you asked for.”

Wide-Format Printing Thoughts              
Source:  John Carew

Recently a colleague approached me regarding a straightforward wide-format graphic print and installation project. As the dialogue continued with the client, we realized the details surrounding the project were adding a level of complexity that required a higher level of attention. This post is designed to give you a basic sense of the questions to ask when approaching a wide-format graphics project.

Whether your wide-format printing project covers an office wall, conference room window, high-end window display, or city apartment building, considering a few key points can make the project more successful.

DurationHow long will the graphics remain in place?

Wide-format substrates can vary significantly from one to another. The material used for a massive billboard may cost as little as a quarter per square foot, whereas the more versatile vinyl used for vehicle wraps may be more than a dollar per square foot. It is critical to the success of any wide-format printing project to know how long the graphics need to be in place in order to the best substrate for the installation.

SurfaceWhat type of surface will the graphics be installed on? Glass, drywall, concrete, metal?

A project can fail––literally fall off the wall onto a client or customer’s head––if the wrong material is selected. The complexity of a specific location can add hundreds of dollars to the installation cost as well.

ImageryWhat kinds of images will be printed? Full-color images or type only?

Believe it or not, not all digital output devices are created equal, and not every wide-format printer prints using the same settings. One printer may be running its machines at a higher resolution while a lower-priced vendor is running them at the bare minimum. In reality, if the graphics were intended to support the sale of a high-end product, the print from the lower-cost vendor using lower resolution would most likely detract from the buying experience. It is important to provide an early mock-up of the planned graphics for the wide-format project. If the project is printing skin tone, cosmetics, or a neutral color like silver, color consistency and high resolution will be critical, whereas large solids and small images may make the lower-cost printing option work out just fine.

LocationWhere will the graphics be installed?

Is the location outside or inside?

“Location, location, location” applies to wide-format graphics as well as real estate. Indoors or outdoors is the biggest factor, but if graphics will be installed on a narrow, closed window in direct Miami sun for 10–12 hours per day midsummer, that could make or break a wide-format graphics project. Graphics installed against the top edge of a wall in close proximity to an air conditioning vent will, with the changes in temperature and dust produced from the ventilation system over time, peel from the wall if not properly reinforced and printed on the correct substrate for the wall type.

There are several other dozen factors that should be taken into account when printing wide-format graphics, but considering duration, surface, imagery, and location will get you on the right path.

5 STRATEGIES  FOR PLANNING YOUR NEXT DIRECT MARKETING  CAMPAIGN

 

Source:  Melissa Cober

Effective and memorable direct marketing campaigns do not simply materialize based on luck; they require lots of hard work, planning, and strategizing. Don’t jump into your next direct marketing campaign with blinders on. Follow these 5 strategies to ensure your next campaign’s success!

1. Plan your campaign based on ROI rather than savings. Too many businesses get caught up in the process of trying to save as much money as possible in the initial phases of their direct marketing, without considering the high ROI that an effective campaign will garner. A dirt-cheap, low-quality mailing list may save you some money now, but your ROI will also be significantly lower than a campaign based around a quality list. Always keep the big picture in mind, and don’t let initial campaign prices distract you from what’s really important – making money.

2. Set realistic expectations. In order to determine whether or not your direct marketing campaign is successful, you will need to set goals ahead of time. However, you also need to make sure these goals are realistic. Without realistic expectations, you will most likely have a skewed impression of what’s working for your business and what’s failing. For any direct marketing effort, it is imperative to calculate your break-even point before executing the campaign. If you have decided to purchase a mailing list or email list, the best way to ensure your expectations are realistic is to ask your list specialist what response rates they typically see on the file you will be using. If the response rates they mention align with your break-even point, you can feel confident pursuing that campaign.

3. Target your audience. Don’t waste your resources reaching out to people who have no need for what you offer. Know who your consumers are, understand their motivations, and know how to reach them. Make your campaign relevant to them; speak to their needs, fears, and desires. If your consumers don’t use the Internet regularly, don’t try to force an online relationship. Meet them in their comfort zone, not yours.

4. Simplify your message. Oftentimes businesses just want to say too much! This is confusing for consumers; if they can’t immediately understand the most important things your business has to offer, they won’t remember you at all. Make sure you have one simple, concise message across the entire marketing campaign. Create a “message hierarchy” to prioritize your messages, and make sure everyone working on the campaign understands this hierarchy. Essentially, don’t bombard potential consumers with too much information.

5. Present a strong call to action. Consumers can’t read your mind, so when you plan your direct marketing campaign, don’t leave them to guesswork: Tell them exactly what you want them to do. Effective calls to action are not about subtlety. They need to be worded strongly, and they need to quickly communicate how that person will benefit from responding to your offer. This is not the time to beat around the bush; be clear about what you want, and then don’t be shy about asking for it.

7 DIGITAL MARKETING TACTICS THAT BOOST OFFLINE SALES

Source:  John Faris

It's clear that digital marketing is influencing offline purchasing behavior more than ever. In fact, 89 percent of consumers who buy in key retail categories in-store have conducted online research prior to purchase (Google, 2010), and offline sales influenced by online research are expected to top 1 trillion dollars in 2012 (Jupiter Research, 2007). To capitalize on consumers' new inclination to research online before purchasing offline, marketers need to go beyond awareness and direct response campaigns, and start influencing the purchase decision-making process.

Identify brand promoters
Customer relationship marketing is a critical component to every company's digital marketing mix. Loyal customers who act as brand evangelists can increase sales and drive word of mouth. Identifying your brand evangelists is a crucial first step. If you have a customer database with emails or phone numbers, you can easily pinpoint brand evangelists with a net promoter score (NPS) survey. The survey need only ask one simple question -- "How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?" Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point scale, and those who rate you highly (9 or 10) are your "promoters." If you deploy the survey in-store or on your website or blog, make sure you capture emails or phone numbers so you have the ability to tie the response back to the individual.

Online reviews
Eighty-three percent of consumers say online customer reviews influence their purchase decisions (Opinion Research Corp., 2008 -- PDF). So the more positive reviews you have, the better. Not to mention, Google favors local listings that have more reviews with higher rankings. Faking reviews or incentivizing positive reviews is frowned upon, and against the policies of major review sites. But there is nothing wrong with asking your most loyal customers to advocate for your brand. So once you have promoter segments set up in your SMS and email databases, ask your brand advocates to write online reviews through a standalone message.

Customer support community
Another way to identify and amplify the voices of your loyal customers is to provide a moderated on-domain customer support community. Not only does a support platform with answers to FAQs reduce customer service costs, but it also creates a significant amount of SEO-friendly user-generated content. Since most of this content is directly related to your brand, you'll increase control over what shows up when people search for your brand. This is critical because search engines are the No. 1 source (online or offline) used by consumers to inform purchasing decisions (ZMOT, 2011).

Social monitoring and engagement
Of course, you can't just set up a community on-domain and hope that you'll capture all of the conversation surrounding your brand, industry, competitors, and consumer segments. According to reports from Forrester, consumers spend about 25 percent of their web browsing time on social media sites, consuming more than 500 billion social brand impressions per year. Consequently, it is essential to monitor and engage on external social media networking sites to track and respond to relevant conversations. This is by no means limited to responding to customers talking about your brand. Engaging with consumers in non-brand-oriented conversations will help personalize the brand and position your company as a credible industry resource.

SMS and email campaigns
Social media has sucked up a lot of air in the room. But given that 93 percent of U.S. online consumers receive at least one permission-based email a day (ExactTarget, 2010) and the volume of text messaging is growing beyond comprehension, these two permission marketing channels are still huge opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell customers and prospects. The key is to make sure that you incentivize the right actions (profitable ones) and that you can track ROI. Coupons are the easiest way to do this, but you have to be wary of training customers to wait for a coupon before purchasing. Also, when promoting coupons via SMS, make sure you have a mobile coupon code or a smartphone-friendly coupon landing page. Mobile campaigns that keep users within a mobile experience tend to perform best.

Brand search advertising
While most successful companies engage in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on search engines, many marketers are hesitant to bid on brand terms in their campaigns. While it seems redundant or wasteful to bid on terms that you already rank first for in the organic results, it is generally a very good idea to do so.

A recent Google study of 400 different AdWords accounts showed that 89 percent of clicks on PPC ads were purely incremental (i.e., if the ads were paused, organic search would have picked up only 11 percent of the clicks). Furthermore, it is crucial to capture brand awareness from traditional (TV, print, radio) advertising with relevant messaging in your branded PPC ads. In other words, your PPC ad headline and description should closely match your predominant offline ad messaging. That way, consumers experience continuity when prompted to conduct a brand search by an offline ad.

Local and mobile search advertising
With the drastic increase in GPS- and mapping-enabled smartphones and the prominence of map results on search result pages, local search is rapidly becoming a critical marketing channel. Representing a significant shift away from yellow pages and 411 services, 70 percent of local business searches are now conducted online (TMP Directional Marketing, 2010). Of those using a search engine on their smartphone to find local information, 77 percent end up contacting a business and 44 percent end up purchasing (Google/IPSOS, 2011). Needless to say, these are hot leads. To capitalize, ensure that your PPC campaigns are geo-specific and set up properly for mobile. Make sure the keywords, ad copy, and landing pages are concise, as consumers won't spend much time typing or reading on a smartphone.

Retail is not a field of dreams. Your company will quickly fail without a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. Offline media is great for driving brand awareness. But you can't rely on radio and TV ads, newspaper and print ads, and yellow page listings to close the deal anymore. If you haven't noticed, consumers' media consumption habits have shifted, and the web has taken a prominent role in the purchase decision-making process. That doesn't mean that you need to have a million-dollar e-commerce site to survive. What it does mean is that you have to think about how consumers research your brand online and develop campaigns to adapt accordingly.