Create Irresistible Direct Mail (piworld.com)

Join Us For An ANA Exclusive Webinar Featuring J.Schmid's Matt Fey Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 10:00am Central. The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. Any direct mail creative endeavor has the potential to go from “All hail!” to “Epic fail!” Join Matthew Fey, vice president and creative director at J.Schmid & Assoc. Inc., for an honest, amusing, and sometimes painful examination of why some creative efforts yield spectacular successes and why others, well, not so much. From high-fiving wins to head-scratching losses, examine a series of catalog and direct mail case studies from a variety of brands – including apparel, food, retail and more on the consumer side, with a few business-to-business examples thrown in for good measure. What went in to the creative decisions? How were they successful? And when they weren’t, where did they go wrong? Glean valuable lessons from both success and failure to get the most out of your direct mail creative. register at: https://www.ana.net/membersconference/show/id/MOC-SEP22E3

For the generations that grew up on Blue’s Clues, mail time is pretty few and far between these days. As a Gen Z/millennial “cusper,” Emily Loof, development and marketing manager at education nonprofit Colorado Youth for a Change (CYC), said she’s pushed for an increased use of direct mail in her current and past roles. Since last year, she said CYC has “about doubled” its direct-mail marketing budget. In addition to seeing increased donations, Loof said she’s also received feedback that indicates younger people may be itching for more things in their mailbox. One person “tagged our organization on Facebook and said, ‘This is so cool. Like, I never get letters from people that I donate to,’” she told us. Given growing data-privacy concerns, clutter in online advertising, and demand for brand authenticity, some marketers we spoke to said the best way to reach younger consumers could be through some good ol’ fashioned snail mail.

One day three statisticians went hunting in Maine. Out overlooking an open meadow, they spotted a deer, and the first one took a careful shot but missed by a yard to the left. Miraculously the deer never moved, allowing the second to take his shot, this time missing by a yard to the right. The third took his turn to aim and – BINGO! “We got it!” exclaimed the third with high fives all around. The marketing planning process can seem precisely like this, and people remember the misses more than anything. Sales and customer growth forecasting is complicated under the best of circumstances, and when planning for 2021, we’re all in for some difficult challenges. One basic principle of forecasting is to plan for normalcy, but this year was anything but typical, and there is still a great deal of uncertainty ahead. Several years ago, when we had more human interaction with our peers, I remember my colleague Matt Morton referencing the planning process as being “a bit of alchemy,” which stuck with me. I thought that was a great way to put it. Naturally, we’ll have previous results from which to work, but the real skill involves the ability to make sound assumptions for planning purposes. Get more at: https://cohereone.com/planning-in-chaos/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=99162426&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8Fe-e-x7FfpLs6vHkNUBAT-Qiz-lHoetPkpZ3bUZ_E7KVhQoQauWC908pY6r9_kJQFD3RcOl6hkg75lneVJTRK4snWbCwo_yJaUHmecdx01klgoPY&utm_content=99162426&utm_source=hs_email