Home  >  White Papers  >  The Best Advice You Never Wanted to Hear

The Best Advice You Never Wanted to Hear

By Mike Stevens

“My direct mail isn’t working.” I hear that statement about 30 times a year from printers calling to cancel their subscription to Ink Inc., my ad agency that provides camera-ready direct mail marketing materials to printers. The printer usually goes on to explain that the sales and profits they had hoped for never materialized. They often add something like, “I know it works for a lot of printers, but my situation must be different.”

Printers and direct mail marketing go back a long way. Ben Franklin himself is generally credited with being the father of the American printing industry and the direct mail industry - he used it to promote printed products that he produced at his small shop in Philadelphia.

Today, you would have to look long and hard to find an industry survey or report that doesn’t list direct mail as the top method preferred by printers to advertise and promote their printing business. In 20 years of studying direct mail, I’ve never seen it rank lower than No. 3 on any list of “Best Marketing Methods.” Direct mail will only occasionally get beaten out by outside sales or websites.

Why, then, doesn’t direct mail marketing work for some, when it appears to work so well for so many?

The dreadful truth is that it’s not the direct mail that’s broken. It’s the printing firm.

Direct mail has repeatedly proven itself a helpful sales and marketing tool for printers. If you are not getting the “sales bump” you expected as a result of your mailings, something else is wrong. Take a timeout and look at your printing firm objectively. What factors might be preventing you from achieving the success you yearn for? The ironic truth is that while direct mail won’t be too helpful in building your sales if you have other “problems,” it will draw attention to the fact that something needs to be fixed at your company. That isn’t the purpose for using direct mail, but it’s none-the-less a very helpful benefit — and one that can’t be ignored.

Here is a partial list of things to consider that will prevent your direct mail from “working”:

• A delivery driver who makes a poor impression
• Prices that are too high for your perceived market value
• Slow turnaround times on bids and estimates
• Less than above average printing quality
• Customer service reps who answer the phone in a manner that is less than enthusiastic and upbeat
• A poorly trained staff who lack strong product knowledge
• The inability to provide deadlines at the time of purchase — and hit those deadlines without fail
• A spoilage rate above 3%
• Invisibility, due to poor location, compounded by historically ineffective sales and marketing plans
• An owner who is “too busy” to give enough face time to customers and prospects
• The lack of a unique selling proposition
• Poorly produced packaging that detracts from the overall impression your printing makes when customers receive it
• A website that is out of date, uninspiring, and doesn’t position you as a good local alternative to the big online printing companies
• An unwillingness by management to view marketing as a necessary investment for the future, rather than an expense that usually gets under-funded

If you think about it, how can your direct mail marketing provide growth and new sales if your uninterested customer service rep takes two days to present a bid that is too expensive and then doesn’t follow up and ask for the order?

Or what if the customer says yes, but then gets a vague deadline time and eventually receives their very average looking printing late, in generic packaging, delivered by a driver who looks like a loser?

Don’t Stop If It’s Not Working!

If you find yourself in a situation where you’re not getting the results you should from your direct mail marketing, step back and study your printing firm as objectively as possible. Try to discover what is broken, and implement improvements fast, so your direct mail has a chance to work.

Let me tell you a story that is so amazing it’s unbelievable. However, what you are about to read is the unexaggerated, totally accurate, honest truth.

We sold the same newsletter subscription to two printers in a densely populated New England city. Their printing firms were on the same street and were so close that they could look down the street and see each other’s buildings – even though they were in different ZIP codes. (The ZIP code boundary was a highway separating their businesses.) Ironically, each of them subscribed to the same direct mail package from Ink Inc. One of the printers bought ZIP codes for one side of town and mailed one direction, while the other mailed in the opposite direction.

Guess what happened next? I’m sitting in my office, and the phone rings. Printer #1 says, “I’ve been using this newsletter for a year, and it’s not working. Please cancel my subscription.” Now here’s where this story gets a little like the Twilight Zone: Less than an hour after I hang up from talking to printer #1, guess who calls? Printer #2! He calls and starts bragging up the newsletter, thanking us for doing such a good job. He says he gets compliments on it all the time. It has resulted in him landing a couple of good accounts. He’s very happy and he tells us, “Keep up the good work!”

I really thought a lot about those two phone calls. It was a perfect example of “a broken printing firm,” even though printer #1 blamed his direct mail. The sad “rest of the story” occurred about a year later when we tried to call back and convince printer #1 to reevaluate his decision to stop using direct mail marketing. We discovered his phone number was disconnected… he had gone out of business.

The best advice you never wanted to hear is this: It’s not your direct mail that’s broken; it’s your printing firm. Something else is wrong. In a paradoxical sort of way, you should be thankful you have your direct mail. The fact that it’s “not working” may save your company, because it is alerting you to the fact that something else is wrong.

The bad news is your direct mail isn’t getting the results it should be.

The good news is there’s hope, and hope changes everything. Your direct mail’s poor results have illuminated some problem areas you maybe didn’t even know existed. You have been provided with an opportunity to step back and look at your situation with fresh eyes. When you quickly move to implement positive changes and improvements, you’ll be giving yourself an opportunity to become more successful. And you’ll be giving your direct mail marketing the chance to build interest and create a front-of-mind awareness for your printing firm. Soon, good things will begin to happen!