Category: Marketing, Print — Tags: direct mail, Marketing, marketing materials, printed materials, QR Codes, smartphone — Sarah @ 7:58 am
People love scanner guns.
Watch any couple prancing around Bed, Bath, and Beyond as they create a wedding gift registry. About 35% of the joy they are experiencing is due to their overflowing love for one another, 25% can be attributed to anticipation of the super cool gravy boats and cheese graters they are soon going to receive, but at least a full 40% is the fact that they get to scan things with a special scanner gun.
When you incorporate QR codes into your direct mail marketing materials, you’re taking your marketing to the next level – by using the newest technology, by helping your targets to spend more time thinking about and interacting with your brand, and most importantly, by providing that special scanner gun experience.
And…What’s a QR Code?
We mentioned QR codes in a previous entry, but as a quick refresher, they’re those little square barcode-like deals that are starting to turn up here and there. The camera function of smartphones can scan them and apps can decode them and send the person who scanned them to a specific website. So at the end of the day, it’s a barcode that’s really a hyperlink.
These babies are useful for advertising purposes because you can use them to direct your targets to your website, or even a specific page of it if there’s a special promo going on or if you have a certain element of your business that you want to highlight.
The “Look What My Phone Can Do!” Factor
Now, smartphone users are well aware that their phones are cool. And most of these lucky folks aren’t afraid to explore all the funky things that their phones are capable of. So by including QR codes in your printed marketing pieces and letting smartphone users know that they can play “scanner gun” with their phones by zapping these codes, you’re more than likely to get a few takers.
This is especially true while QR codes are just starting to make their way into the marketing world. After all, not all smartphone users have had the opportunity to scan any QR codes yet, so your chances of getting your code scanned right now are pretty good. Even if they’re just scanning the QR code because it’s something new and fun to try, you’ll be getting people to spend time on your website who may never have made the trip otherwise.
So drive traffic to your website, show off how cutting edge your company is, and provide your targets with some of that “Nah-nah-I’ve-got-a-scanner-gun-and-you-don’t!” delight. Talk to your pals at imPress about how you can include QR codes in your printed materials.
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Category: Marketing, Print — Tags: emotional marketing, emotions, Marketing, marketing materials — Sarah @ 7:00 am
Have you made anybody cry today?
Well, maybe you should have.
We’re here today to talk about putting an emotional spin on your marketing materials. In other words, including writing or a design that tugs at the ol’ heartstrings a bit or helps bring out clients’ other emotions. It’s something we often recommend to clients because studies have shown just how effective it can be. But sometimes, folks tend to be hesitant about the idea.
Why We Think This Might Be
Most people seem to think that they make decisions rationally. So when they are thinking about marketing materials, they tend to think in terms of what facts they can present to their audiences. Now, don’t get the wrong message here – we do think it’s essential to present facts about your product or service to your audience. But we find that taking those facts to the next level by blending them with language or design elements that appeal to the emotions is an effective technique.
Targeting Real People
When’s the last time a TI-89 walked into your store and made a purchase? (Besides in that strange dream you had last weekend after that wild party, of course.) People are so much more complicated than machines, and most of us don’t make our purchases using a strict, foolproof formula that determines whether something we buy is worth the money. (As evidenced by the ridiculous amounts of money that are spent every day on very ridiculous things.) This leaves plenty of room for marketing materials to persuade a person to buy something by establishing an emotional connection with the person.
In other words, thanks to human nature, people who are iffy about the features of a product may still purchase it if it brings about the right emotion.
How To Do This Best
Of course, this can be a delicate undertaking. Since emotions play such a key role in determining what someone will buy, you definitely don’t want to inspire the wrong emotion through your marketing materials. It’s easy for an emotional marketing newbie to accidentally annoy someone he was trying to make happy or make someone mad that he was trying to fill with empathy. Like plumbing, dental work, and tattoo art, emotional marketing is usually best left to professionals with experience in the area.
May we suggest the ultimate emotional marketing team — imPress?
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Category: Creativity, Marketing — Tags: direct mail, Marketing, marketing materials, Martin Conroy, story, The Wall Street Journal — Sarah @ 8:30 am
Who doesn’t love a good story?
Kids love stories. Teenagers love stories. Adults love stories. Different people might prefer them to be packaged in different ways – in TV episodes, comic books, movies, romance novels, whatever – but everyone loves to be swept away by a well-told narrative that gives the imagination a little exercise.
Since it’s easy to hook someone in with a story, including one is an excellent strategy for your direct mail marketing pieces.
It Worked For Them
Just ask the parade of people who purchased The Wall Street Journal after reading a direct mail piece by Martin Conroy that incorporated a now-famous story. You can check out the full text of the story in this article, but in a nutshell, Conroy presented a little narrative comparing two men who graduated from the same university but experienced different levels of success. Conroy’s letter then argued that knowledge leads to success and that such knowledge could be found in The Wall Street Journal.
Now, Conroy certainly could have just started the letter off with his point – knowledge leads to success so buy The Wall Street Journal and gain knowledge – and gone from there. And the letter probably would have been a lot more succinct and the printing company could have saved some ink. But the letter would have been so much less effective. Abstract concepts like “knowledge” and “success” probably aren’t going to draw a reader in. But a story might.
Weave Your Own Tale
So, next time you mail out a marketing letter, tap into your creative side and try starting with a story. Depending on your business, it could be anything from a true anecdote to a story about a random fictional job interviewee named Gerald to a piece set in a fantasy world. But if you can lure them in with a compelling story, chances are good that they’ll want to stay around to see how it ends.
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Category: Marketing, Print — Tags: brochures, hiring professionals, marketing materials, printed materials — Sarah @ 6:06 am
The following is a true story.
A friend of ours recently opened a piece of mail from her homeowners insurance company and was appalled. The envelope contained a letter and a brochure. And both of them would have been better left unsent.
The letter was a typical form letter recommending that our friend consider insuring her car with this company. The message was not out of the ordinary, but the mistakes were. Sentences within the letter ranged from poorly written to actually grammatically incorrect, and the letter concluded with the assertion that this insurance company would be “happy to suite your needs.”
The brochure, believe it or not, was worse.
Instead of hiring a printing company or even using a desktop publishing program, the geniuses running the operation opted to construct this brochure elementary school art project style. That’s right, folks, someone actually sat down with a gluestick and got busy gluing the graphics onto the brochure by hand. The sloppy edges were a dead giveaway that someone tried to save a few bucks.
What You Send Says a Lot About You
The well-meaning staff of this insurance company thought that they were sending out marketing materials, when in actuality, these pieces were the opposite of marketing. Instead of luring our friend in and getting her interested in a new service, the company made her question their credibility as an insurance company. She couldn’t help but wonder, If I ever actually need to make a claim, will they try to fix my house with a gluestick?
Don’t let your printed pieces send the wrong message. There may be some aspects of your business that can be handled with DIY jobs, but designing and constructing marketing materials probably isn’t one of them. Professional designers and printers will make sure that your printed pieces actually bolster your company’s image instead of bringing it down.
And if there are any holdouts out there who still want to make their own brochures, we beg you to avoid puffy paint, pipe cleaners, glitter, crayons, and gluesticks.
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