Do you make this mistake with your letters. . .
You wouldn’t expect the layout of your letterhead to cost you extra every time you send a sales letter to your prospects or customers, would you? But it can.
I was talking with Phil Hutchinson, Managing Director of 1Vision, whose direct mailing services I frequently use for my clients’ and my own mailshots. We were discussing some of the mistakes people make with their sales letters and specifically the problems they create for themselves when they don’t think to ask his advice before preparing their direct mailing material.
Even something as simple as the layout design of a letterhead can have a significant impact on the costs of a mailshot.
A bad design loses money…
How so?
Because when bulk mail outs are sent (and when I say ‘bulk’ it can be any quantity between 500 and 500,000 or more with Phil’s services) you can enjoy a welcome saving on postage costs. But only if your packages comply with certain standards.
And that’s where a letterhead design can create problems - as happened for one company.
You see, a vast number of letters sent to businesses use window envelopes. And Phil explained that postal companies are able to offer discounts because they use OCR (optical character recognition) systems to automate and speed up the sorting process.
But in order to do this it is crucial that nothing appears through the envelope’s window, other than the recipient address. Showing any additional, unrelated text or graphics can cause the letters to be rejected, which means you lose your postage discount. That could be an expensive £300 or more loss on a mailshot of 15,000 items. Imagine the cost for larger numbers!!
Even if you’ve not yet reached these larger mailshot numbers, there are other important marketing reasons for keeping that address area as clean as possible.
An ‘Aha!’ moment
As Phil and I chatted I realised this was just one of the crucial aspects that need considering when you are creating your mailing campaign. Phil has a deep well of knowledge when it comes to direct mailing. And it occurred to me drawing on that knowledge could have immeasurable benefits for you.
So I’m going to twist Phil’s arm and get him to spill the beans. I intend to draw these professional secrets out of him and share them with you. Each gem I weasel out of him will give you extra, powerful knowledge you can use to make your mailings even more successful. (By the way, we will be discussing specifics for the UK postal services but the vast majority of the topics we touch on apply to mailings in other countries too).
The telephone interview will be recorded and posted on this blog sometime in the future.
~ Carol Bentley
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