Direct marketers are using digital and online-based techniques to target their audiences more precisely and affordably than before.
But many are opting for less expensive materials and are negotiating discounts more aggressively while they wait for that elusive economic recovery.
Those findings are the results of interviews with printers and DMers, all of whom are looking for ways to do more with less.
One relatively new method was tried by Leading Edge Promotions, an Atlanta sports marketing company, in a recent test mailing for the Bowling Proprietors Association of America, a proprietors’ trade group in Arlington, TX.
A direct mail test in December to a 2,500- name test cell relied on technology that enabled individual bowling centers, as they are known, to compose their own pieces from pre-set creative elements supplied by a central Web site (www.leadingedgepromo.com/dmm) and send out their own local mailings, says John Harbuck, an executive vice president with Leading Edge.
Under this system, individual bowling centers could use a set of templates to create the mailing pieces and mail the pieces either to their own names or those supplied by InfoUSA, says Gary Halperin, vice president of client services at Grizzard Advertising, the DR agency for Leading Edge.
Under this system, the bowling centers could use a set of templates to develop the mailing pieces and send them either to the names on their lists or those supplied by InfoUSA, says Gary Halperin, vice president of client services at Grizzard Advertising, the DR agency for Leading Edge.
Once it has received all the information from the centers, Leading Edge downloads it to Grizzard, which creates the pieces and sends out them out.
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