The Structural Graphics Blog

Dog Days are Over, Time to Reenergize

It’s unbelievable to me how fast this summer went by. It seems like only last week I was reading all of the graduation stories in the local paper. But alas, fall is upon us. The temperature is cooler and there are even trees starting to turn yellow and brown.  Oddly enough, the premature-coloring is from the lack of rainfall in the region and not the changing season. For those of you in the warmer regions of the country check out this amazing video on the changing seasons.

The new season is a good time to get reenergized about your marketing. Many BtoB marketers put programs on hold during the summer because too many people are sitting on the beach or driving their R/V’s across the country. But now the kids are going back to school and vacations are over, so there are no excuses.

I think there must be some psychological transformation that goes on inside us when the seasons change. Sort of like spring fever, but instead of slacking off, we feel like getting things done. For me it’s evident in the marketing and creative meetings. People want to get going on projects that have remained stagnant through the summer. Or, start working on initiatives that are just ideas and not reality.

From a sales perspective, now is a great time to dust off your database and start to reconnect with your clients and prospects. Think about an approach you haven’t tried before. Try something new, something fresh, something unexpected. Gosh, I love that word, “unexpected”. I suppose it has a negative connotation for most, but in marketing it can be the silver bullet your campaign needs.

We’re all about the unexpected here. Our entire business was founded on the idea of marketing to your prospects in an unexpected and exciting way. After all, who expects something to pop-open and jump out at them when they open a seemingly innocent looking envelope? Who expects to find a huge poster-sized picture automatically fold open as they leisurely thumb through a magazine?

Since I have been with Structural Graphics the unexpected has taken on a whole new meaning. It’s no longer the strange phone call you get from a sibling in the middle of the night; or a messy surprise that falls from the sky and hits you on the head as you walk in the park. The unexpected is now cool, exciting, different and fun.

So this Fall, as the leaves start to pile up on the ground and the day light fades earlier and earlier into the western sky, it will all be very expected. It’s been happening for billions of years. Similarly, as long as there has been marketing, people have come to expect the normal, the predictable and the average.  What a great season to be the unexpected.

High-Impact in No Time and Halloween in August

As I strolled past the food court of our local mall, tempted by the smell of pretzels and bad Chinese food, I noticed a tall black witch standing in the window of one of the stores. Her arm was propped up by a wire and she was pointing in my direction with an ugly grin on her face. She held a sign in the other hand that read, “Lowest Prices on Halloween Costumes”.

Halloween? It’s August and last time I checked Halloween was at the end of October. I peered in the window and noticed a handful of shoppers sifting through costumes and decorations. The whole scene just didn’t seem right. I was standing there in shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops, staring at Halloween junk. I guess these store owners need to order their inventory months in advance. That means the suppliers are cranking our fake wax lips and rubber masks while holiday music is still playing on the radio.

It got me thinking that even with all of the technology at our disposal, lead times are still pretty long. Information can travel instantly around the globe. Packages can travel in a day or so to any corner of the Earth. Even with digital printing, electronic proofs and email, things still take time.

A couple of years ago Structural Graphics initiated a major review of its workflow. Every department and process was evaluated with the goal of improving our customer’s experience. We talked to our vendors, or customers and our employees to come up with better processes and new ways of doing things. The result was better communication with our customers, a smoother production process and of course, shorter lead times. But that’s not all we did.

We’re in a unique business. All of our dimensional projects are different in some way. Perhaps a customer needs a fairly standard box, but hey, can it whistle when someone opens it? Or maybe they’re just doing a nice magazine insert, but need an actual video to play right on the flat page! Yeah, we can do that. Then there is the client that needs all the bells and whistles, but needed it yesterday. Extremely tight deadlines are the reality of today’s world so we had to find a way to service these clients too.

This past year we launched RocketShip Solutions™. It was the culmination of months of effort trying to create a streamlined production process for our most popular designs. As a result we can now offer a large variety of high-impact dimensional solutions that can be produced and shipped in as little as a week! Furthermore, you have many different fulfillment and mailing options so you won’t be squeezed into a one-size-fits-all solution.  We’re really excited about the launch of this program and it has already proven to be a success for our customers.

Not everything needs to take a lot of time. You can have your high-impact cake and eat it too. Oh, and of course, you can also get your kids their Halloween costumes three months early.

Staying Top of Mind in a Flooded Marketplace

It’s always been a challenge for marketers to find ways to stay top of mind with their customers and prospects. It’s even harder when your company offers services where the customer’s need is intermittent or unpredictable. This is the challenge our business faces every day. The question is; how can we be visible when the customer has a need?

Obviously you can’t mail or call all of your customers or prospects each week to find out if they need anything. Well, you probably could but you would get a lot of hate mail. You need to be confident that when the need arises your customers can find you.

One way to do this is with a high-impact mailer. Your prospects are getting dozens if not hundreds of envelopes and letters every day and most of them suffer a swift death in the recycling bin. But what if you sent them a small package that pops open? One of my favorite pieces here at Structural Graphics is our Book-Cube™. It never fails to surprise the recipient, even when they know it’s coming.

The Book-Cube is just one of the many high-impact designs we have created through the years. When people approach our booth at trade shows and tell us they received some cool piece that popped-open, or made a sound, or flipped over itself, or broke the rules of traditional mail in some unnatural way, we are delighted. This is the best way we stay top of mind with our prospects and customers.

Of course, there are other things your company should be doing. Sending out a weekly email newsletter is a great way to stay engaged with your database. With the dramatic increase in spam over the years this is much more difficult, but as long as you provide useful content in an consistent manner your email should get read.
 
The popularity of social networks and online groups has also created an avenue for marketers to communicate with their customers in a consistent and efficient way. This too has its limitations, but is still something you need to be looking at.

The reality for most marketers is that it’s impossible to insure all of your prospects and customers will keep you top of mind when the have a need for your services. But it’s important to communicate with them when they don’t need you, so you’re sure to be around when they do.

If you want your own surprise in the mail shoot me an email and I will personally send you one!

Let's get Personal!

Personalization has long been a staple for marketers looking to increase response rates. Using variable data to make a piece truly unique is a time-tested and proven method. However, we took that one step further last year and introduced a line of dimensional direct mail pieces that can be printed digitally and personalized. So is this going to be a long and shameless plug? Well, some may see it that way, but I prefer to think of it as a wake up call!

When you combine a high-impact dimensional piece, which in its own right is a powerful ROI booster, with the benefits of personalization, you get amazing direct mail. Furthermore, if you have a good list you can really have some fun.

Personalization goes beyond seeing your name on a printed piece, although people love that. I don’t know what it is, but people like seeing their name and are always surprised by it. If you have the right data you can do so much more. What about sending a piece with geographically relevant images on it? For example, a recipient in New York can see the beautiful city sky line, while someone in Wyoming gets an image of a huge pasture with cattle grazing. They have cattle in Wyoming, right? Or, maybe a cruise line could send a piece to current customers featuring images from a cruise they have not been on yet. By the way, whenever I am fortunate enough to book a cruise we always receive brochures from other cruise lines all the way up to our sail date. What is the point of that?

Recently we offered a way to take personalization to the natural next step. Adding a personalized URL (PURL) to your piece adds a third element of engagement for the recipient. Several recent campaigns have used a personalized piece with a PURL and have seen great results. Let us combine all three of these elements along with a good list and compelling offer and well, you’ll have yourself a winner.

To learn more about BtoMe, our line of high-impact data-driven pieces click here.

Tips for Marketing to C-Level Executives and Everyone else!

You’ll find plenty of books, articles, seminars and guides on how to market to c-level executives. They are the elusive top-prize for most b-to-b marketers. However, they read mail, visit websites, check voicemail and respond to marketing just like the rest of us. The trick to reaching them really isn’t all that different from reaching any other consumer.

To get anyone’s attention you need to be relevant, engaging and impactful. That’s it. That formula works regardless of the title you are going after. If your marketing can combine all three of these components chances are you’re going to have a successful campaign.

Relevance: Is your message relevant to a c-level executive? Depending on the size of the company, buying decisions are often made below the c-level, so perhaps you’re making an assumption on who the right person to talk to is. You also have to take into account that many c-level execs have assistants. If an assistant doesn’t think what you have to say is relevant to their boss, chances are they won’t pass it on.

Engaging: So perhaps you have made it into a c-level executive’s office. Now what? How are you going to get he/she to notice your message? Engagement is all about getting the recipient to notice and spend time with your brand. Using personalization is a very effective way to engage your recipient. Taking that one step further, a PURL (personalized URL) holds their attention and allows you to capture more intelligence on your prospects. We’ve got more ways to make something engaging than you can shake a stick at! By the way, where the heck does that expression come from? Since I am a bit of a nerd I had to look it up.

Lastly, we have to be impactful. Our piece has to make a lasting impression. I have received a lot of flat mail in my day and the only one I can really recall is my Dunkin Donuts coupons. Impact can only be had when the piece speaks right to the recipients needs and causes a response. [blatant sales pitch warning] We know impact like nobody’s business. As LeVar Burton used to say, don’t take my word for it.

It’s sort of funny that entire books, lectures (and blog posts) have been dedicated to this subject. For me, there aren’t too many differences between getting the attention of a c-level exec and Joe Shmo. I admit, the gatekeepers that executives have tend to be much better than Joe’s, but even gatekeepers respond to clever marketing.