Newsletter June 2013

Welcome to Outmere Direct Mail’s June newsletter!

Can you remember the last time you received a nice looking envelope or parcel that has landed on your desk?  We bet you can.  Not only will you remember it but you can probably remember who it was from.  Can you say the same about the last email or tweet you received?  Probably not.  And that’s the value of direct mail.

But don’t take our word for it.  In 2012 Epsilon did a study in the US to look at how consumers like to receive marketing messages and how they feel about the different “channels” businesses use to generate leads and create sales.

73% of respondents said they receive a lot of emails that they simply do not open BUT 62% said they enjoyed receiving mail through the post.  Not only this, but another thing to consider when deciding on which route to go is that direct mail is more accurate and 95% deliverable, whereas quality email addresses are difficult to acquire.

Email may be cheap and fast, but direct mail has the power to target more effectively and gain people’s interest.  Google is a classic example.  They have phenomenal online exposure, yet they use direct mail to promote their Adwords to businesses.  Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Contact Outmere Direct Mail on  020 8947 7577 for a fast and competitive quote for your next direct mail campaign.

PS  Have you checked out our website lately?  If not, check out our brand new mobile friendly website on your smartphone.  We’re really rather pleased with it!

Newsletter May 2013

Welcome to Outmere Direct Mail’s May newsletter!

After nearly 40 years in the business (!) and hundreds of happy customers, we’re still here, and happy to report that the use of Direct Mail as an effective way of reaching your customers is alive and well!  But don’t take our word for it.  Here’s the research which backs up what our happy clients already know.

Print advertising is a very effective method of getting your message across.  A study by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has shown that direct mail advertising will give your business an average of 13 to 1 on your investment. Not bad eh?

Studies from the DMA/Pitney Bowes Direct Mail Survey in 2008 showed that 39% of customers tried a business for the first time, and 70% of customers renewed their relationship, because of a direct mail promotion.  Not only that but according to Neilsen’s “The Evolution of Circulars: From Print to Digital,” Q4, 2011,printing is the preferred method for guiding consumers with their shopping decisions.

A “not to be sniffed at” 69% of shoppers rely on weekly newspapers and 67% on Direct Mail for sales and product information. And you may be surprised to know that these numbers are even higher among the younger, allegedly more digitally savvy, shoppers!

So what are you waiting for?  Call us today on 020 8947 7577 to get your next Direct Mail Campaign underway.

We can provide you with an almost instantaneous quote and are always happy to price match!

Newsletter April 2013

Welcome to Outmere Direct Mail’s April newsletter.  Are you thinking about your next Direct Mail campaign (we hope so) and how Outmere can help you?

It may seem old-fashioned in the groovy world of digital marketing and social media, but Direct Mail and paper based communication with your clients gets the job done and really will enhance your sales.  Take the use of catalogues, for example.  New research from the Royal Mail’s MarketReach initiative has proven that catalogues drive sales through increasing consumer engagement with retailers’ websites and online purchasing.

The research found that the benefit of posting a catalogue to potential clients can have an instant impact, with 60% of catalogue recipients going online to make a purchase within a week of receiving their catalogue with 50% spending over £40 on their first purchase.  Not only that, but catalogue users will:

• look at more than double the number of pages of a catalogue than they will of an online brochure
• and spend more than double the amount of time on any given website if they have looked at a physical catalogue first

In addition to which:

• 70% of catalogue recipients will keep the catalogue to hand for  over a month and 34% for up to a year
• And 7 out of 10 people spend between 5 and 30 minutes browsing your catalogue compared with an average of 11 minutes spent browsing your website

So…what are you waiting for?  Outmere Direct Mail is here to help you make sales and we’d love to hear from you.  With our comprehensive range of direct mail postal products alongside a wide range of machine and hand enclosing services we are confident we will be able to provide you with a service that meets your needs and budget at a very competitive price.

Call us today to discuss your requirements and we’ll be happy to give you a quote immediately!

March 2013 Newsletter

Welcome to Outmere Direct Mail’s March newsletter.  We’re soon to move on to British Summer Time, spring has just arrived (really!!!) and Easter is round the corner.

So….why not use an Easter-themed direct mail piece to get in touch with your customers and remind them that you’re there?

Waitrose has done exactly this for the last two Easters, to back up the expansion of the myWaitrose loyalty scheme.  Their first campaign encouraged customers to do their Easter shopping in Waitrose and introduced its partnership with Delia and Heston (Smith and Blumenthal, obviously…)

The second campaign used delicious Easter images of hot buttered hot cross buns on the envelope along with the words “A little Easter something…especially for you”.  Inside the envelope were personalised wine recommendations which Waitrose wine experts based on customers’ previous purchases, along with personalised vouchers and short survey asking customers for information on their wine preferences to enable Waitrose to provide more tailored content and offers in their direct mail pieces moving forward.

We’d love to help you get your Direct Mail campaign off the ground and remind your customers that you are there.  Don’t forget a good, well targeted Direct Mail campaign delivers over 30 times more responses than email.  Maybe that’s why Waitrose think it’s a good idea!

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

At Outmere Direct Mail we’re in the mood for love!  In case you’ve forgotten, it’s Valentine’s Day on Thursday and did you know that:

• It is estimated that 25 million cards will be sent through the postal system
• Brits are expected to spend £880 million celebrating Valentine’s Day
• Men will spend more than twice as much as women showing how much they care!  Now there’s a surprise!!

We want our clients to feel the love too, so we have a special treat in store.  The person who books the first job on 14th February will get a bottle of pink bubbly to take home and share with their Valentine.  Don’t be shy – get your Direct Mail campaigns over to us, and that pink champers could be yours!

And while you’re thinking about whether it’s a good idea or not, think about this:

• In the UK last year, 2,032,800,000 direct mail items went to 26.4 million households
• 86% of all direct mail was opened
• 57% of women responded to direct mail pieces personalised to their needs versus 38% of men responding on the same basis
• 17.7 million people ordered something after receiving a mail order catalogue in 2012
• Nearly 80% of marketers are either maintaining or increasing their direct mail budgets in 2013. Because it works!

We look forward to hearing from you

With love from the Outmere Team

Sales letters to clients, both existing and carefully selected potential clients are an important part of the marketing mix.  Properly constructed, they enable you to send personal and specific messages and information to your customers, which will result in a better response rate than a more scatter gun approach.

So, if you’re thinking of getting your New Year’s direct mail campaign off to a flying start it’s worth remembering that 90% of the cost of your mailing is incurred whether you send excellent, targeted, wholly relevant letter or it is something that is goes straight into the recycling-bin. Follow our top tips here and you should see a good return on your efforts.

1. Get the right mailing list

You can always buy mailing lists, but it’s worth taking a bit of time and effort to make sure your list is relevant to your campaign.  Target your efforts and you will get a better return on your investment.  Think about who your best customers are and what they have in common in terms of demographics (age, gender, home ownership, purchasing history, children, pets etc), then make sure your mailing list matches the relevant demographics as closely as possible..

2. Make a genuine offer

Data tells us that you need to get the balance of information in your direct mail shot right.  To get the best results focus your efforts in the following way:

• 40% of effort should focus on the quality of your mailing list (see 1 above!)
• 40% should focus on the perceived value of your offer
• 20% should focus on everything else

Your offer should genuinely make your customers feel like they are getting a great offer and you need to be making a genuine profit!  Don’t forget to put a time limit on the offer too and keep it short – you want people to respond as quickly as possible.  Finally, don’t forget to tell your clients how to respond.  There’s no point creating a great offer if your clients don’t know exactly what to do next to take advantage of it!

3. Get the envelope right

Don’t forget that the first thing your clients will see is the packaging, so think about what you want to print on the envelope.  Could you include a photo or graphic, or  ask a question your customers will want to know the answer to (and answer it inside)?  If you can generate immediate interest, your letter is more likely to be opened and you’re more likely to get a response.  A few years ago Infotrends/Cap Ventures undertook a study and found that personalised colour printing increased response rates by 36%!

4. Choose the right mailing house

There is no point creating your direct mail campaign if you don’t have the best direct mail company to help mail your letter to customers.  Outmere Direct Mail offers the best mail services in London and across the UK, so give us a call let us help you get 2013 off to a flying start.

Source: Business 2 Community

Hello and welcome to our November’s newsletter!

It isn’t December just yet, but the hour has gone back and the weather is slowly getting more wintery. In the same way that we need to start wrapping up in our winter woollies, we would love to see you start wrapping up your pre-Christmas Direct Mail plans!

How we can help!

We are fully aware that this year will be slightly different, especially with addition of VAT on postage, but with your forward-thinking and our years of experience, we can still achieve great value for money on all your direct mail campaigns.

For example, if your campaign is a 100% advertising piece, going to more than 4000 recipients, your postage can come in at around 19p per item!

Once your mailing hits 4,000 items (or just 1,000 for bigger/heavier items) it’s automatically eligible for a Bulk Mail which means you can save even more by using us to assemble and send your mailing.

For more information on how to save; Christmas and New Year’s delivery deadlines and any other questions you may have, please don’t hesitate to give us a call! Alternatively, just click here and drop Nick a line.

What people say!

Finally we thought we’d let you know how good we are at what we do by letting you know some of the nice things our clients say about us:

100% excellent service 100% of the time. No challenge is ever turned down even with minimum notice from us and Nick and his team are an absolute pleasure to do business with.

Membership Secretary, Annabel’s (nightclub)

Nick and the Team at Outmere have always provided an excellent service at a reasonable price.
Their friendly and helpful attitude has made working with them easy and their reliability has allowed me to spend time worrying about other things!

Marketing and PR consultant

Very pleased to recommend Nick and his colleagues at Outmere, who over many years now have consistently handled our fundraising mailings with great efficiency and reliability.

Co-founder, The People’s Pledge campaign

For more client feedback, check out Nick’s LinkedIn profile here

Many people think that direct mail marketing is rather old fashioned and being superceded by texts and social media.  But, some new research recently reported in Marketing Week (http://bitly.com/JP77AT) shows that they couldn’t be more wrong.  New data reveals that there is considerable public resistance to being contacted in any format other than by direct mail and email, with no more than 6% of people being happy to be contacted by text, telephone or via social media. 

Some experts believe direct mail wins because the person on the receiving end has more control over when and where they will interact with it, as it can be opened and read at a time and place that is convenient for them.  Text messages for example are seen as disruptive and intrusive, not least because mobile phones are seen as very personal and receiving an unsolicited text is often seen as overstepping a boundary. One of the key things to remember when planning your direct mail campaign is to address it personally to the recipients.  Over half of a 1000 people asked,  said that having the mailing addressed to them personally was a key factor in them deciding to open the mailing up by 8% since 2006!

So, it’s worth remembering the value of a good direct mail campaign and using the right mailing house to send it out for you.  That’s us! Contact Nick by clicking here and get a quote for your Christmas campaign.

Direct Mail:  A potted history

 Direct mail and direct marketing began in the late 19^th century, with the first mail order catalogue produced by Aaron Montgomery Ward in Chicago in 1872.  He undertook the first mailshot, sending his catalogue of various goods to his own unique mailing list.

Since then the use of direct mail has grown enormously and direct mail services are used by businesses of all shapes and sizes from the smallest of start ups to some of the world’s largest companies.  Companies providing direct mail services can advise on all aspects of you mailing including making sure your mailing lists are up to date, postage rates and the most cost effective way to get your information into the hands of your potential clients.

By the early 1900s direct mail companies were starting to emerge in the UK and the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) first incarnation was established in 1927.  The current DMA came into being in 1992 following the merger of various trade bodies working in the field of direct mail and direct marketing, forming a single voice to support the direct marketing industry, including direct mail marketing, and promote its development.

Just over 100 years after Aaron Montgomery Ward started the first direct mail service in Chicago, Outmere Direct Mail was founded in London, in 1976 and has been providing direct mail services throughout London, the UK and overseas ever since.  We have worked with all sorts of businesses, big and small from a vastrange of business sectors.  Our London based direct mail services have included distributing catalogues, postcards, brochures, letters – the list goes on and so do we!  One of our longest standing clients is the Church of England, for which we distribute numerous types of Direct Mail.  They say:

We have used Nick’s business for a number of years and he provides us with a consistent high standard of work that is both efficient and cost effective.

We’d like to to do the same for you, so if you have a direct mail campaign planned, call us!

Welcome to Outmere Direct Mail’s September Newsletter and what a great start we have had to the autumn!  Andy Murray has won the US Open – the first Brit to win a tennis Gland Slam for 76 years.  Let’s hope it’s the first of many.  Even better, the rugby season is now in full swing and the Mighty Quins are off to a flying start and are at the top of the table having played 3 and won 3.  What’s more Olympic hero Mo Farah will be at the game against Saracens on Sunday 30 September.  We can’t wait!

So what’s new at Outmere Direct Mail….

We have a polywrapping machine…

…and we love using it!  This is a new bit of kit for us and it means we are able to offer an even more comprehensive service to our clients.  This machine is on the more “boutique” end of the spectrum of services we offer and can manage mailings of up to 5000 units.  We can wrap your direct mail piece in a clear plastic envelope and it’s fantastic for sending out journals, brochures, reports and catalogues.  It increases the number of people who will see your mailing as the wrap is transparent.  This means anyone who comes into contact with or sees your direct mail piece will be exposed to the contents and not just the person it is addressed to. What’s not to like?

Get in touch for more information or a quote

Email blasting…

We love to do this too!  If you think an email blast rather than a more traditional direct mail piece is more up your street and will reach your target market more effectively, we can help with this too.  Let us know what you want to send and how many people you want to send it to, and we’ll do the rest.  Email blasts can be very affective, not least because the vast majority of people who use email check there emails at least once a day.  Even if your blast doesn’t tempt your potential clients to action, at least by seeing your name in their in box, you’ve reminded them you exist!

Again, get in touch for more information or a quote