A NEED TO BE OPENED
It’s a good thing that envelopes need to be opened.    Test this idea as you review your in-basket at work:    self mailers and seminar flyers disclose their subject immediately so that the reader can make the snap judgment to toss, or to consider.    For the rushed reader, and the corporate mail room, and busy consumer, self mailers are a great service because you can throw them out quickly.    But envelopes– they need to be opened.    So the rushed business reader waits for the slow moment when they can invest the time to open and read your mail.

A SLIGHT CHANGE
Change your outer envelope. A new color or a different size may be all it takes to get people to take a second look at a package they’ve seen too many times. You can also try switching from a teaser envelope to a plain one or vice versa. And faux express envelopes are often worth a test.

EASY ACQUISITION IDEA
The next time you send an invoice, consider the addition of a coupon, or at least a code, that your customer can give to a friend or neighbor offering a discount for a first-time purchase.    There is no more powerful influence than the hand-delivered testimonial from a third party.    And yes, I know, you can save a stamp, too.

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A 7 Step Marketing Plan

One of the most powerful strategic planning tools your business can possess is a marketing plan. Your marketing plan should be a simple (in some cases, one-page) document that specifically answers who you are, what you do, who needs what you do and how you plan to attract their attention. It’s a combination of the planning process and the completed action plan.

Follow these seven simple steps to build the perfect marketing plan:

Step 1: Narrow your market focus. Try to describe your ideal customer in the narrowest and most detailed terms possible, as though you’re describing him or her to a referral source.

Step 2: Position your business. Figure out what you do best and what your target market wants. Maybe it’s how you serve a niche or package your products. If you don’t know what it is, call up three or four of your clients and ask them why they buy from you. Craft a core marketing message that allows you to quickly differentiate your business.

Step 3: Create education-based marketing materials. Recreate all your marketing materials, including your website, to focus on education. Make certain every word in your marketing materials speaks of your core messages and to your target market.

Step 4: Never cold call. Make sure all your advertising is geared toward creating prospects, not customers. You must find ways to educate before you sell. Your target market needs to learn how you provide value in a way that makes them want to pay a premium for your services or products. You simply can’t do this in a 3-inch-by-4-inch ad. Your ad must get viewers to ask for more information. Then you can proceed to selling. Determine all the ways you can get your education-based messages in front of your narrowly defined target market.

Step 5: Earn media attention. Create a list of journalists who cover your industry or community, and build relationships with each by becoming a reliable resource of information. Plan out an entire year of new items you can promote by season or event.
Step 6: Expect referrals. Create a referral marketing engine that systematically turns each client and referral network into a kind of unpaid sales pro. You must instill a referral marketing mind-set into your business’s culture. Do this by making every customer a marketing and referral contact. Map every contact and build processes that focus on referrals.
Step 7: Live by a calendar. After you complete steps 1 through 6, determine what you need to do to put them into action. Then create an annual marketing calendar, noting the required monthly, weekly and daily appointments necessary to move your plan forward.

John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award-winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide.

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Retailers Feed Holiday Demand for Free Shipping

Increasingly, Shoppers View the Perk as a Given; Buying Enough to Qualify
by Rachel Dodes and Geoffrey A. Fowler

Online shoppers this holiday season can expect a little something extra from retailers: more offers of free shipping.
Free shipping has already become standard practice for certain retailers, like footwear and apparel sites Zappos.com and Shoebuy.com. Now, as competition heats up, free is becoming the new normal across even more sites.
Target Corp. is launching its holiday free-shipping promotion on Nov. 1—two weeks earlier than last year—and applying it to twice as many items, the company says. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is using free shipping in its holiday fight with Amazon.com Inc.: Both retailers are selling 10 popular books at a deep discount—but Wal-Mart is throwing in the shipping.

Last December, 250 stores ranging from J.C. Penney Co. to Pottery Barn participated in a “Free Shipping Day” event organized by Freeshipping.org, an ad-supported site that lists free-shipping deals. This year, the number of participating retailers for the Dec. 17 event is expected to double, with stores like Toys “R” Us joining for the first time.
Retailers are jumping on the free-shipping bandwagon because it is a proven way to catch shoppers’ attention. The strategy is also an attempt to cut down on the huge number of virtual shopping carts that are abandoned at check-out. Indeed, a May survey by eBay Inc.’s PayPal found that 46% of shoppers claimed high shipping charges—more than any other reason—was why they ditched potential purchases in online shopping carts.

“Free is very exciting,” says Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University. “Free shipping is not just another discount.” Mr. Ariely found in an experiment that people are between four and five times as likely to spend $5 for an item if either the shipping or the item is free as they are to pay $2.50 for the same product plus $2.50 for shipping.
Many new offers are likely to come around Thanksgiving and toward the middle of December. That’s when retailers with extra inventory are looking for ways to liquidate it before the end of the season. Some of the deals come in limited-time specials and require special coupon codes to be entered at checkout; they are sometimes announced only to select customers via email. Others require consumers to spend a certain amount or are part of loyalty-program benefits.
But shoppers will have to keep their eyes peeled for some of the offers: Sites don’t often give a lot of advance notice of their free-shipping deals. Luke Knowles, chief executive of Freeshipping.org says many stores are likely to keep mum about participating in “Free Shipping Day” until the event approaches. They “don’t want people to hold off on buying today because they are waiting for free shipping,” says Mr. Knowles.

Bloomingdale’s now gives shoppers who use its credit card and spend more than $150—and noncardholders who spend more than $300—free shipping.
Many retailers lowered the bar on free shipping after the economy worsened last fall: It was a bid to woo shoppers and liquidate inventories. A year later, many have slashed inventory levels—but most are keeping or expanding free shipping, even as the costly benefit cuts into profits.
Macy’s Inc.’s Bloomingdale’s chain, now gives shoppers who use its credit card and spend more than $150—and noncardholders who spend more than $300—free shipping. Nordstrom is lowering its free-shipping threshold to $100 from $200 on Nov. 2 for the holiday shopping season. Luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue says it has increased the frequency of its sporadic free-shipping offers since last September. “We believe, especially in this kind of economic environment, people appreciate that value even more,” says Denise Incandela, president of Saks Direct.
Mark Pierce, chief executive of MarketLive Inc., which develops and hosts e-commerce sites for 100 retailers, says free shipping is an important driver of e-commerce transactions because the offer “liquefies consumers’ largest objection to shopping online.” Free shipping and free returns ranked as the top two factors that influence shoppers’ purchasing decisions online, and high shipping charges were found to be the top deterrent, according to a recent survey by MarketLive and eMarketer, a research firm.

Amazon.com has won legions of new customers with a shipping program called Amazon Prime that isn’t actually free but makes shoppers feel like shipping costs aren’t a worry. Subscribers to the program—which costs $79 a year—get automatic two-day shipping for many products sold on the site. A PiperJaffray survey in May estimated that the program has attracted two million members, who increase their spending by about 20% after signing on.
“I have to admit, [free shipping] has spoiled me,” Lucas Shaffer, a graduate student from Phenix City, Ala., says of the Prime service. The 29-year-old buys everything from books to boxers on the site, and estimates he has saved at least $400 in shipping costs in the past two years.

But free shipping can mean huge costs—and headaches—for merchants: Shipping cost Amazon.com $630 million last year. Amazon offers free “Super Saver” shipping to all customers for many purchases of more than $25. (But gift-givers have to plan ahead: “Super Saver” shipping takes five to nine business days. The cut-off for a delivery in time for Christmas is Dec. 17.) Last year, Zappos had to cut back on the guaranteed speed of its free shipping to make sure it could meet customer expectations.

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To Postal Service Customers:

Many of you have expressed concerns regarding mailing costs for 2010.  The tough economic climate has presented significant challenges to all of us and pessimistic speculation has suggested that postal prices could increase by as much as 10 percent.
As we begin a new fiscal year and as many of you, our business clients, are preparing your 2010 operating budgets, we want to end all speculation.
The Postal Service will not increase prices for market dominant products in calendar year 2010.
Simply stated, there will not be a price increase for market dominant products including First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, periodicals, single-piece Parcel Post.  There will be no exigent price increase for these products.
This is the right decision at the right time for the right reason.  Promoting the value of mail and encouraging its continued use is essential for jobs, the economy, and the future of both the Postal Service and the mailing industry.
While increasing prices might have generated revenue for the Postal Service in the short term, the long term effect could drive additional mail out of the system.  We want mailers to continue to invest in mail to grow their business, communicate with valued customers, and maintain a strong presence in the marketplace.  Changes in pricing for our competitive products—Priority Mail, Express Mail, Parcel Select, and most international products—are under consideration.  We expect to announce a decision in November.

We are committed to working with customers to find ways to grow the mail through innovative incentives like the Summer Sale and contract pricing.  Mail is the most effective means of communication and advertising and we will continue to work together to increase the value of the mail.  Mail is a smart investment for the future.
The Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) is available on Postal Explorer (pe.usps.com). To subscribe to the DMM Advisory, send an e-mail to dmmadvisory@usps.com. Simply indicate “subscribe” in the subject line.

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‘ Successful use of PURLS (personalized URL’s)’

The University of Alabama wanted people who have season football tickets to pay their seat license fees online to cut down on the waiting time for the money and the labor involved in processing checks and forms that come in the mail.  To encourage online renewals, the university used a postcard marketing campaign with Personalized URLs (PURLs) and a compelling offer to entice seat holders to take out their credit cards and complete the transaction at that moment.  Unique personalization of imagery on the postcards, enabled by digital printing, grabbed the attention of recipients.

Access this case study ….
http://printinthemix.cias.rit.edu/uploads/File/casestudies/PODi_UnivAlabama.pdf

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