The Best Advice You Never Wanted to Hear
By Mike Stevens
“My direct mail isn’t working.” I hear it about 30 times a year from printers calling to cancel their subscription to Ink Inc., my ad agency that provides camera-ready direct mail advertising materials to printers. The printer on the phone 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 advertising 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 beat out by “outside sales” or “word of mouth.”
Why then, doesn’t direct mail advertising 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 not working. It’s the print shop.
Since direct mail has repeatedly proven itself to be a helpful sales and marketing tool for printers, something else is wrong. If you are not getting the “sales bump” you expected as a result from your mailings, you need to take a time out and look at your print shop 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 building your sales if you have other “problems,” it will draw attention to the fact that something needs to be fixed at your print shop. 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 for you to consider of some of the things that will prevent your direct mail from “working”:
- Poor-quality printing.
- A difficult-to-find location.
- Prices that aren’t competitive.
- Poorly designed mailings, and/or weak content.
- Customer service reps that are unfriendly or lack knowledge.
- Inconsistent schedules, and skipping some mailings all together.
- An out-of-date mailing list with incorrect contact names and addresses.
- Printing on discontinued, out-of-date sale papers.
- Mailings with numerous typos and grammatical problems.
- Mailing to businesses located too far away from your print shop.
- A mailing list that is too large: It can hurt cash flow in the beginning.
- A mailing list that is too small: It won't change much.
- Slow turn-around times.
- Lower-quality products.
- Poor customer service follow-up.
- Mailing to businesses that are “too big.” Many printers go for the “big kill,” hoping to land giant accounts. If your print shop is small and only has six employees, the majority of the businesses on your list should be smaller, too. Sure, include some big-sized prospects, but understand that the odds of landing them are slim.
If you think about it, how can your direct mail work if you have high prices, your turn-around time is average, and your front counter people don’t return bids quickly, and seldom do follow-up sales calls?
Don’t Stop If It’s Not Working!
If you find yourself in a situation where you’re not getting the results you should be getting from your direct mail advertising, step back and study your print shop as objectively as possible. Try to discover what is broken, and fix it so that your direct mail has a chance to work.
Let me tell you a story that is so amazing it’s unbelievable. However, I’m telling you 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 print shops 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 print shops.) 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 print shop,” 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 him to try a direct mail advertising program again. 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 not working, it’s your print shop. Something else is wrong. In a paradoxical sort of way, you should be thankful that you have your direct mail. The fact that it’s “not working” may save your print shop, 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 that now you know there is a problem. If you find it and fix it, you'll not only see a better ROI on your mailings, you’ll be running a more successful and profitable company.
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