Every day we come home, get our mail and sort through for the bills and any letters from friends and family. It’s pretty much a routine we have…you already know what you’re looking for. So what makes a direct mail piece stand out so that we don’t rule them out and throw them in the trash?

The envelope is the first thing we see. If it doesn’t immediately catch your eye or looks questionable, 9 out of 10 times it goes “bye-bye”.

Now the question is: how do we draw them in? We all know the old saying don’t judge a book by its cover, but in this case, you have to! The envelope is the first impression, so you have to hook that fish and reel it in. The idea is to at least get them to read the letter inside.

Some great ideas to boost your envelope appeal:

1. Use unique colors for the envelope itself. Depending on your product or service, use colors that pop. Colors can captivate and stir emotion. For example, when promoting to teenage girls, test using colors like hot pink.

3. Experiment with different size envelopes and test which one works better.

Here’s an example of a successful mail piece that we created.

The objective of this direct mail piece for the Philadelphia zoo was to increase memberships. The strategy was to create multi-format mailings featuring the benefits of membership. The end the results, we were able to increase response rates, because of new creative and new list selection.

Funny enough Mike our VP and Creative Director, STILL wears the “I Belong in the Zoo” t-shirt that was featured on the piece.

I want a lot of products/services customized for me, especially services. Who doesn’t?

The Lillian Vernon Catalog would personalize things from business card cases to leather desk sets to, well, just about everything. And you could always return them, no questions asked. Personalized means more than just your name on something, though.

For instance, I need a new couch, the just-right-for-me personalized couch, not too modern, not too plush, not too austere. The smart salesman at a Decorator Showroom listened and then showed me diagrams in a catalog where I picked the arms, legs, backing and pillows I wanted. Done! When I got home, I had a moment to relax, picked up the Wall Street Journal and, ta da, there was an article: “ ‘Custom’ is Customary. Entrepreneurs see rise in demand for Made-to-Order goods”.

This reminded me of the work we do in advertising/marketing agencies.

Years ago when I was President of Vickers & Benson Direct up in Toronto, the head and creative director of Vickers & Benson Advertising, our parent company, was a wonderful man named Terry O’Malley. Everyone who ever worked for or with him would follow Terry into the jaws of hell.

His mantra for the agency’s work was simple: Everything tailor-made, nothing off the shelf.

I shortened that to “Nothing off the shelf” and made it my mantra when I opened my own agency in New York and now here in Miami. It’s the only thing we’ve ever espoused that we took from someone else. Here’s the (very) shorthand version of how Nothing off the Shelf works:

1. Prospective clients tell us what they want to accomplish. (“Incremental sales from 1,000 new bank openings”)

5. Then we execute and measure results.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of our business is that when we do lift response, it is almost never due just to the creative. Yes, it looks good and reads very well, but the real lifts usually come from all kinds of ideas: great new offers, new lists (and new segments and selects), perhaps a compelling Subject line on an email that begs to be opened. The most dramatic wins are in the dozens of details we test.

Yet a new client will be in this week who will ask to see other bank “creatives” we’ve done. Sigh.

But I never gave Twitter a lot of thought until the other day when my friend, Amy Africa (@amyafrica in Twitter talk), called to chat.

We talk about a lot of things but sooner or later the “How’s business?” question comes up. “Fine,” I told her, “but it could always get better.”

Amy’s an Internet marketing expert and she knows that I have 12,000 or so Twitter followers. She mentioned that having a large-ish Twitter following credentializes you. Amy tends to just mention things and let you make the connection.

I made this connection immediately. Could the time I spend on Twitter ever actually do my business any good? Twitter is big part of what we call Social Media – Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, this blog, etc., all of which I’m involved in to different degrees. Could Social Media do my agency any good?

I should know the answer but I’m not sure I do.

I write about the power of Social Media: relationships, consistency of voice, brand issues, one-to-one communication, frequency, etc. I know how to make a deal, how to close a sale.

Does all this credentializing do any good? Have I been invited to make more speeches this year than last year? Does anyone send me a Tweet asking for marketing help? No and no.

So I asked my Twitter friends if I’m missing anything. Here’s what a few of them said:
@vbpickett: “You should appreciate the great friendships” ( I do!)

@Journeywoman said “absolutely invest in Twitter time …”

@MatthewTNelson:“I have my tweetdeck open all day and I’m constantly scanning for website RFPs. When I see one interesting I reach out and connect.”

Later he tweeted that he had landed two website development contracts via Twitter in the past year.
Wow! Results. Now I have to figure out how to home in and do the same.

If you have any ideas, suggestions, advice you can share, I’d love to hear from you.

Here’s one…

This letter came to Lois Geller, and though it’s about “moving to a new home” not a new office, they have the right idea. People still buy the most new things when they’ve moved and want to start fresh.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned while working in marketing it’s that it all about the right offer, to the right people at the right time. This offer is a bit lame, and not sure we can redeem it in stores close by our office.

Lists and offers are very much like finding the love of your life; it’s not easy finding the perfect match. You try people on and if they don’t fit, you chuck ‘em. You ask yourself, what am I doing wrong? Well in Marketing, it’s the same way! You have to find the right match! When I say match, I mean the right list and the right offer. Once you have those 2 things down, you’re sure to have a successful campaign.

Lists work, and you need a “call to action”- use by September 1, 2010.

Most importantly, you have to strategize! If you want to stay ahead of the game, you have to have a game plan. Like the Miami Heat creating the Dream Team with Lebron, Wade, and Bosh, they have a game plan to win a championship! A good strategy in our case would be a Customer Loyalty program, which builds the database, and also creates long lasting loyal customers- like us!

My name is Rachel Rodriguez and I am
currently a student at Johnson & Wales University,
studying Marketing. I will be graduating in the spring of 2011.

So many people tweeted me wondering why I was vacationing in Ukraine, kidding me about borscht (which wasn’t that bad), asking where Ukraine is and if I had relatives there.

I have no family there, had never even heard of the Dnieper River, and I’m not a history buff.

Nonetheless, I learned so much from the AHI Tavel trip. It was planned as an education with small alumni groups from Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Colby College, Northwestern and the University of Washington plus a few stragglers like us.

There were also several hundred Europeans aboard, mostly from France, Germany and Spain.

The best part of the trip? The people in our group were all very pleasant and well educated, the kind of people who like to learn just to know new things! We enjoyed daily lectures from the cruise staff, a Kiev University Professor who talked about politics and the head of Russian studies at Dartmouth. We also visited so many places we’d all been reading about since our childhood. In addition to Kiev, Sevastopol, small river towns and the fascinating Odessa, three side trips stand out:

· Yalta, where Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt decided how Europe would be divided after WWII. I wanted to sit in Churchill’s chair but had to settle for just touching it.

In a way, this was where the Cold War began as Stalin made promises he had no intention of keeping.

· A secret underground submarine base right in the port of Balaklava. The Soviets built it into a mountain in the late forties at great expense and a few months after they finished, the new subs were too long to fit in it. Central planning at its best.

· We had lunch with a family in their home in the middle of nowhere on the banks of the river where we toasted them with Ukrainian Moonshine they’d cooked up themselves.

As a marketer, I couldn’t help notice that:

1. All Ukrainian street stalls seem to sell the same stuff from Kiev to Odessa: the same plates, dolls, paintings, shirts, etc. One creative person would own the tourism souvenir market if they created unique branded items.

2. The people selling in stores and stalls need help in dealing with European and American customers. They could be a lot more customer friendly. Their first and only answer to everything seems to be “No”.

3. I saw very few Ukrainian brands. Maybe that’s because of the Russian mindset. Based on what I did see, Authentic Ukrainian Moonshine might be an idea.

This was the original gate to the city of Kiev

I missed you while I was away. As always, please feel free to send any questions, ideas, etc. Or leave a comment here.

I walked toward our board room, and the smell of fresh-baked brownies wafted around the office. People were peeking out from their desks, wondering if someone was baking. People who usually stay huddled behind their computer screens were appearing outside the board room to see if we were getting Duncan Hines as a new account.

But there she was, Suzanne Beecher, blonde and smiling and carrying a huge box of brownies for everyone. She was definitely my kindred spirit.

She told me then she was starting a new venture, an online book club…talking about different types of books and perhaps getting libraries to sponsor her business…so she could email her reviews each week to her readers.

It sounded a little far-fetched to me, but I figured if anyone could do it…Miss Enthusiasm would. Well. 350,000 people now read her DearReader.com and her daily column. She’s homespun, down-to-earth and funny and when she writes you feel like she’s writing only to you. She reminds me of Fanny Flagg.

We’ve talked on and off over the years and 2 years ago, I was visiting Sarasota and invited Suzanne to meet me for lunch. She did, and it was delicious to see her…and she told me she was going to write a book about her life, and add some recipes…and some photos of her family. We dropped her at her home, met her husband, Bob, and I missed her as we drove back to Miami.

Well, last month I received her new book (in uncorrected reader’s proofs), and she asked me to give it a read. I just loved it, like I do her. It’s her story of her own dreadful kind of upbringing, her challenges in life with illness and business. And, the whole time I’m reading it, I’m thinking I’m sitting at that little café in Sarasota yakking with her again.

You get a snapshot of her life as a little girl, and cooking when she was eight, while practicing singing her backup part to the Monkees. Then years later when she met her husband for the first time as she hobbled around with one leg in a cast and the other taped in an ace bandage.

Sprinkled with her grandma’s favorite recipes, she writes about her wonderful magazine that she had to walk away from, and her overnight stay with her grandson in the hospital, and life, in general.

What happens to Suzanne, happens to all of us. And the difference is she gives and shares more of life and love in her book than we often can. That’s why you’ll love this special book.

Buy it at amazon.com today and take it to the beach, or read it in your comfy chair. You’ll feel like you’ve just caught up with your best friend. Then buy lots more copies for your friends and family, as I am.

Suzanne called last week to see if I liked the book. I said I did so much, I was going to even try one of her recipes for my company last weekend. (I have a plant in my oven), as I never cook. So, I did ask her how I sift flour, or if I needed to.

On Monday she asked how my cooking went (afraid that she’d heard about a blazing fire in Miami). I told her no, not yet. Maybe this weekend I will try that marinated flank steak though. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Last week my friend Keith Fletcher of the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association called to invite me to a marketing conference with an intriguing title: Social Media/Legal Mashup. He wanted me to hear Gaida Zirkelbach, a lawyer, speak about social media. A lawyer?

Keith told me that she’s fascinating and I’d learn a lot. So, I went. And she was great. My first clue was that half the room was filled with lawyers taking lots of notes. If I ever have a problem, I’ll just call Gaida fast. She’s great. I wish I had a transcript of her presentation but I took notes, too, and here they are:

· Kim Kardashian said that she’d never use Dr. Siegal’s cookie diet, and would never do an unhealthy diet like his. Dr. Siegal filed a lawsuit and you can read all about it here: Kardashian Article

· Apparently the Ann Taylor Company gave a gift to people who blogged nicely about the company. According to the FTC, you must disclose that to readers. I already knew that. A few years back we did a program for American Express auto insurance. Instead of a traditional sales letter, we used a thank you letter from a happy customer. Our creative director edited it, and we sent the writer a small gift from Tiffany’s. We also added this: “I didn’t get paid for this letter, and my original letter was edited but these are my words. The advertising agency sent me a gift from Tiffany’s to thank me.”

· Gaida (and I) encourage you to read The Digital Milennium Copyright Act.

· Gaida covered a lot of ground quickly. She told us about a woman who spoke badly of her boss on Facebook. Her boss then fired her on her blog. I’ve noticed that people talk freely on Facebook and don’t seem to think that employers or associates might read it. They will, and do!

· There was a fascinating story about Houston’s employees who were griping on Yelp. One of the bosses had gotten onto the site using someone else’s i.d. The employees sued him for “invasion of privacy”.

· Gaida urged us to manage risk in social media by putting together policies for employees. She mentioned the Communications Decency Act, and her parting words were “think before you print”. I think she meant think before you post.

Late one night I was tweeting about my sick cat, Mortimer. One of my followers said that she didn’t care about my cat, and why would I think anyone would? This was followed by a firestorm of people tweeting support for Mortimer. They probably “unfollowed” her.

· Twitter is for kids, mostly following celebrities.

· Who cares what some people are eating for dinner?

· I tried it for a few days, and thought it was like talking to myself.

So many people try Twitter and never go back. That’s like trying to be a doctor and dropping out after BP 101.

When I was growing up my Mom and Dad would never allow quitting. When I signed up (and paid up) for baton twirling lessons, I had to stick with them even after my twirling with fire almost burned out the gym, sort of like Carrie.

Twitter Quitters had short attention spans. All Social Media practitioners are always testing new platforms, engaging with new people and using it everyday.

In fact, I’m just trying Gowalla today, Foursquare, too.

I don’t want to have Twitter as my one area of expertise. Using all the Social Media and connecting them will multi-purpose my content and increase my luck!

Practice, practice, practice.

How do you get to be a Social Media expert? Same answer. And I haven’t practiced nearly enough. Nonetheless, more than a few companies and associations have asked me to speak to them about Social Media. I suppose that’s a good sign – they’re becoming aware of the issue.

Direct Marketing and Branding have always been my major topics and a few years ago I began including thoughts about Social Media in speeches but I’m still no expert.

I’m not even sure who is. We’re all learning and practicing and just when we think we’re close, someone throws a monkey wrench into the works, like Facebook’s new privacy challenges.

Whenever I mention any social medium – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. – odds are that dozens of people in the audience will know a lot more about it than I do. But I still practice. I’ve been practicing yoga for years and although I’m probably better at tweeting than at downward-facing dog ruminating on the topic remains a stretch.

Of one thing I am certain: if we don’t keep learning about the strategies that work and those that don’t, we’re just stunting our growth.

The real joy of the Social Media arena is that it is dynamic and the halls are filled with people who can teach me new things every day. But if you ask me to speak at your association, don’t invite me as an expert but as someone who is enjoying the practice!

P.S. About 30 years ago, National Lampoon magazine sent a writer tricked out as a tourist to Central Park West (8th Avenue) in New York, a few blocks from Carnegie Hall. The “tourist” asked hundreds of passersby “Excuse me, how do I get to Carnegie Hall” and two thirds of the people answered “practice, practice, practice.”

This was the topic of my speech at the FDMA last week.

When AJ Morales called and asked if I’d speak—I said “No”!

Why? Because, every time I do we get every supplier in our area calling for business. We’re a small group, and spending that time and preparing the speech—usually makes new friends for my agency and that’s good—but it eats up a lot of time.

AJ Morales called back a few weeks later and said I’d help members if I taught them the right way to engage people and get business.

So I relented and did!

Then he changed the venue from the Westin hotel to Johnson & Wales University. I told him attendance would drop like a rock (because people including me)—don’t know where it is.

He said 80 people would show up or he’d eat his hat. I told him I’d bring the hat. Here’s AJ eating his new Yankees hat.

And the group was great! The bonus was there were many students from the University who are taking the Direct Marketing course there. The great professor,
Mr. Mark Neckes is shown here with me.

Hope his students intern with us this summer!

This was my leave-behind from the speech,
the ten steps to getting new business: