Direct Mail Marketing Bouncing Back With Economy

If it seems like your mailbox is brimming with direct mail advertising these days, you are not imagining things. After three years of declines, spending on everything from simple postcards to glossy brochures is rising. Direct-mail advertising sales rose 3.1 percent last year, a significant turnaround from the previous three-year drop of 20 percent, according to New-York-based marketing consulting firm Winterberry Group LLC. The firm is forecasting a 5.8 percent increase in direct mail spending for 2011. Bob Lieber, CEO of Original Thought LLC, said the increase is due to the overall improvement in business conditions. “As companies see the economy turning around, they tend to increase their spending on marketing, because so many of them have cut back their spending during the recession,” Lieber said.

Source: Medill Reports

B2B Seeing Gains

With rebounds in the categories of business, advertising and marketing as well as building, engineering and construction categories, b2b print revenue posted gains of 2.0% in March compared with March 2010. American Business Media’s Business Information Network (BIN) shows gains in eight of the 21 markets it covers. These revenue gains come even as ad pages themselves declined 0.7% for the month. Year-to-date, b2b print posted a 3.3% growth spurt, although again, pages have been down a fractional 0.2%. Also strong in March was agriculture (+12.40% in ad revenues but -3.86% in ad pages), automotive (+10.49% in revenues and +17.61% in pages) and transportation and logistics (+11.26% in revenues and +23.38% in pages).

Source: FOLIO MinOnline

E-Commerce-Catalog Strategy

The US Postal Service continues to highlight the increased punch that a combo direct mail- e-commerce strategy can deliver. Its latest example: My Macy's, the department store's localization initiative that was pushed to a new level in November 2010. It was then, USPS' Deliver Magazine reports, that the department store personalized its direct mail marketing strategy to target regional preferences and individual shopper habits. In short, customers who made credit card purchases received catalogs that reflected their specific shopping histories - such as a specially-crafted catalog with mostly clothing for someone who has purchased a lot of clothing lately. Macy’s produced more than 30,000 catalog versions with page counts that varied from 32 to 76.

Source: MarketingVOX

Are You Ready for the USPS Mobile Barcode Promotion?

Also called QR (Quick Response) and 2D barcodes, the codes link offline information to online content, effectively providing additional information and even multimedia to an offline experience. It’s an instant way of delivering unique offers. QR codes can be read anytime and virtually anywhere using a smart phone app. They can be used in a variety of ways - allowing users to access websites, see text and images, send emails and messages and dial telephone numbers. Click here to read the top eight best QR practices. Keep up-to-date by visiting the USPS Mobile Barcode site [Link].

UPS CEO Voices Opinion on USPS

Scott Davis, the CEO of United Parcel Service (UPS), was asked about the future of the Postal Service in an interview for the Oregonian. Davis suggested that “Clearly, there’s a role for the post office.” Davis said, “They're looking to reduce services, reduce post offices -- they have to do that to become fiscally sound. The Saturday service is controversial, but I think they have (to cut) it. I'm not sure people need six days of mail service, I'm not sure they need five days in this day and age with everything being electronic.

Source: OregonLive.com