An Observation

I have a 15 year old daughter, she has her phone, she has her Facebook, Twitter and all the other items electronically in the world! She never says, but I know she does get advertising sent to her on these electronic gadgets.

Now the 14 to 21 age group female are the largest spending group in the United States!

The other day a piece of mail came to my daughter from one of the clothing stores. It was personalized too her. It stated there was a sale on these days, and to get this kind of discount she needed to bring this coupon to the store to receive X.

She started running off, saying she needed to go to this store as she saw ...........................!

I asked as we were getting into the car, didn't she get this as a twitter?, email? or some other form of Internet galactic babble?

She said she didn't know as she has never read or remembered seeing any of this sent to her.
By this time we were at the mall, and we purchased the item or items shall we say, she wanted.

As we drove home I finished up and asked, "What made you made you want to go to the store to purchase this item's?"

Her comment was this! " Dad they sent me a letter with my name on it, and they knew I like this particular store! The showed me some clothes I really liked and wanted, and I could see the pictures and prices, and I had to have them!"

I guess the social media part is growing, but the new technology is PRINT!

Alan

Points of Hue

Colors can make a client either purchase, or run away depending on what you are trying to say.

Color Communications Inc has done this study and I thought it was interesting to share.

Blue-based reds (such as raspberry red) are associated with more expensive products. Stick with yellow based reds (like tomato red, which is imagined as less expensive) if you're looking to downplay a high price.
Use orange to play up affordability. Yellow is the first color they sees, and when used with dark colors for high contrast (e.g. black type on a yellow background), it become more powerful and more easily read.
Choose green to convey possibility and hope.
Blue connotes confidence and safety, making it a great choice for financial and medical institution mailers.
Purple is especially hot right now, but it's typically used with high fashion, sorts teams or sweet treats (e.g. chocolates or perfume) rather than direct marketing.
Black conveys a strong sense of power, promise and the ability for high contrasts. Add sheen or matte to black, and it becomes more powerful.
White (especially when presented tone on tone) implies sophistication and formality - but also a high-end price point.

Direct Mail vs. Mailing

Yesterday I ran into a friend who works for a direct mail house here in town. Now I do mailings also so we had a cup of coffee and we talked a bit.

Now he has been in the direct mail industry 25+ years and I have been in it maybe 2 years.

We talked about equipment, and technology and after about 15 min. his comment was, You are in the mailing industry, you are not in the Direct Mail industry!

I said explain.

His comment was if you are doing postcards, with either variable data or just an address this is just mailing as the card itself gives a call to action, but the card is more informative, rather than having the end user do something with the piece!

I somewhat agreed with that statement, but said go on.

Direct mail is a process which gives the end user exactly what they are looking for, and if you are calling an action to either donate money, or purchase an item, the direct mail piece has several pieces and a reason for you to have a call to action.

He said the post card drives people to the Internet to buy. Direct mail has the end user pick up the phone and go!

I say all this, to say I'm in the mailing industry as the campaigns he has done was very awesome.

I'm learning every day

Alan

Payment / Credit

It is 2010 and everyone knows money is tight and giving credit is a prayer and a hope in the first place, but it is something which has to be done, and writing hot checks are still a crime and not paying is still a pain in the butt.

More clients are on COD than ever before, but is this really a bad situation?

As if you pay for it when your recieve the product than it keeps your books clean, and if you are not trying to collect the money than you are able to do what you do best.

And wasn't it the credit issue which got this country in trouble in the first place?

Yes I've had a frustrating day!

Alan

Mistakes in Specs

In the 27 years I've been in this business I've seen a ton of specs on projects, and they have been written on cocktail napkins and they have been given on the phone, and they have also been emailed.

But a common mistake happens a lot, and this is in the bindery part of the specs.

People seam to get that their project is going to print 4 color, and they have designed this to be a certain size, but how does it fold? How did you get to your final size? and once we are finished folding or doing what ever you want to do with this piece, lets talk about packaging!

Last week I had a magazine which need to be estimated, and I had others who were bidding on this project. I asked about how much did he want the boxes to weigh? The awnser back was well I don't know what do you think?

That doesn't sound much of a problem but in a situation where the client is buying more on price, here is the problem.

If I try to save the end user and I put 20 lbs per box, we are talking about 100,000 magazines, this is almost 650 boxes to box the project @ 1.25 per box, but if the other guy says put it in a standard 40 lbs box, he has 325 boxes @ 1.30 per box. This is $390.00 saving on just the material of boxes, this does not include the labor to tape and lable the boxes, as this will add about another $200.00.

So the other guy has saved almost $600.00 on this project and per the specs we are both in compliance. But my 82 year old mother can move my boxes, but she can't even move the others.

So when giving specs on a project tell us how you want it packaged, as when you get the project and the box comes and you throw you back out trying to move it. Remember we as vendors are trying to get as much margin in these down times and if I can make it up in boxes and packaging then I will.

Alan

Home Depot

I went to Home Depot over the weekend, and when I walked in I was asked to fill out this survey. The questions of the survey was bogus, but the information they recived from me was awsome, and there was one question which I would like to know the awnser after everything is taken.

The question was this:

How do you like to recieve coupons and promotional material?

Via of mail
or
Via of email

I asked the person who was taking the survey the question what had he seen on the awnser, but because I was there fairly early on a Saturday morning the 5 which were before me all had said MAIL!

We can look at this two ways?

People in their 30's or younger don't get at Home Depot at 8:15 AM, or the Boomer generation knows how to fix things and the X & Y don't.

I would guess the later as chances are they at least stayed up past 10:00 PM on a Friday night?

But it was a very good question

Alan

Print is Dead, and athe Ipad took it over?

Well the Ipad has been out 2 weeks at this point, and the reviews are coming back in. The first point which is needing to be fixed is the Ipad is a WiFi based computer, just like all the other computers in the world, and depending on the strength of the signal is how strong your computer is.

Can you download a movie to watch, just on WiFi? Seems like the catch up is what will take so long?

So far the Aps for the new Ipad don't do anymore than what the Iphone does.

So is Print Dead?

Well the first day Apple sold 300,000 Ipads, with 300,000 instruction manuals inside the box, they also needed 300,000 boxes, and also buck slips of sort.

Hmm? Looks like Apple needed some print also

Alan