USPS Postmaster General Announces Postage Rate Freeze in 2010

USPS announces no Postage Rate Increases 2010

USPS, the United States Postal Service is working diligently to embrace the change, in this new world.  There’s a lot of good news coming out of USPS…if you visit their website you will see that the focus of their position {as a monopoly} is becoming more customer service driven and supportive of the direct mail needs of their customers.

Word has it that there will not be a postage rate hike in 2010 for first-class mail, standard mail and periodicals. Postmaster General John E. Potter says, “We want mailers to  continue to invest in direct mail to grow their business, communicate  with valued customers and maintain a strong presence in the  marketplace.”

Here is a copy of the press release from the USPS Postmaster General.

From John E. Potter USPS Postmaster General and CEO:

To Postal Service Customers:
Many of you have expressed concerns regarding mailing costs for 2010. The tough economic climate has presented significant challenges to all of us and pessimistic speculation has suggested that postal prices could increase by as much as 10 percent.

As we begin a new fiscal year and as many of you, our business clients, are preparing your 2010 operating budgets, we want to end all speculation.

The Postal Service will not increase prices for market-dominant products in calendar year 2010.

Simply stated, there will not be a price increase for market-dominant products including First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, periodicals, single-piece Parcel Post. There will be no exigent price increase for these products.

This is the right decision at the right time for the right reason. Promoting the value of mail and encouraging its continued use is essential for jobs, the economy, and the future of both the Postal Service and the mailing industry.

While increasing prices might have generated revenue for the Postal Service in the short-term, the long term effect could drive additional mail out of the system. We want mailers to continue to invest in mail to grow their business, communicate with valued customers and maintain a strong presence in the marketplace. Changes in pricing for our competitive products—Priority Mail, Express Mail, Parcel Select, and most international products—are under consideration. We expect to announce a decision in November.

We are committed to working with customers to find ways to grow the mail through innovative incentives like the Summer Sale and contract pricing. Mail is the most effective means of communication and advertising and we will continue to work together to increase the value of the mail. Mail is a smart investment for the future.

Now that’s good news!

Until next time,

Alice

You’ve Really Got Mail!

Hand Addressed Mail Gets Opened & Read

Can you remember the last time you went to the mailbox and pulled out a hand addressed letter? It’s exciting, isn’t it?

As you sorted the mail, you probably threw all of the other mail aside and opened the hand addressed letter first. Didn’t you?

In this age of digital media, real hand addressed mail has become very rare and is totally unexpected.

Regardless of your industry, handwritten mailings are the most effective way to capture the attention of your audience and have been proven to increase direct mail response rates by 300% or more.

Savvy marketers are using real handwriting, or our specialized P4 process, to personalize and address mailings, announcements, newsletters, fund raising requests, promotions and follow-ups to their current and prospective clients.

It’s a proven fact, that just by adding a human element of hand addressing, that is absent from most direct mail campaigns today, you can improve your direct mail ROI.

When developing cool direct mail campaigns…hand addressing the outside of the envelope using the recipients first and last name helps to bypass the gatekeepers, when mailing to executives.

Contact SMS, to learn more about hand addressing for First Class mail and our specialized P4 process for creative direct mail campaigns.

Glazer-Kennedy Info Summitt ‘09

Glazer-Kennedy Insider's Circle

Specialized Mailing Services, Inc. will be exhibiting at the upcoming “SOLD OUT” Glazer-Kennedy Info-Summit 09’ in Atlanta, Georgia, from November 5^th – 7^th.

It’s expected to surpass the last Info-Summit, so we’re in for the ride of our lives!

If you didn’t get in on this one … you can still register for the next Glazer-Kennedy Super Conference that is scheduled in Dallas, Texas on April 29th thru May 1^st, 2010, with a special bonus day on May 2nd.  Visit www.DanKennedy.com for more details.

If you’ve never been to a Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle™ local chapter meeting or event and you’re serious about learning the insider secrets for direct marketing …take a minute to visit their website, you will find it to be time well spent!

The Glazer-Kennedy site is “The Place” where smart entrepreneurs go to find the answers to fast and dramatic growth, greater control, independence and security in getting their products and services out to the marketplace. It all comes together there!

Until next time y’all …

Alice

Blending of Social Media and Direct Mail Drive Sales

Can Prospective Clients Find You?

While surfing the net for direct mail trends, we came across a research brief posted by Jack Loechner of MediaPost Publications.  Jack stated that…According to the first annual Community and Social Media Study, five out of ten social media tools have been adopted by more than 50% percent of brands and retailers, with the Facebook Fan Page leading the way at 86%. In addition, the study found three-fourths of the survey respondents feel brands have accelerated their use of, and commitment to, community and social media in the past six months.

Specialized Mailing Services, Inc. would welcome the opportunity to collaborate with you to create innovative and creative  direct marketing campaigns, blending direct mail and online marketing strategies together.

• If your audience doesn’t know it, we’ll help you introduce it to them.

• If your customers love it, we’ll help you provide reasons to continue loving it.

• If your audience knows about it but has forgotten, we’ll help you remind them of it.

By creatively blending a direct mail campaign with social media you can:

• target your  audience
• re-enforce your message accurately putting it into the hands of your audience
• extend your message through share ability
• unlock creative possibilities
• allow yourself a way to measure your response and conversion rates
• speak personally to your audience

This effective marketing strategy will allow your brand to:

• sustain your business during an unstable economy
• stand out from your competition
• attract new clients, partners and networks
• expand easily into new business opportunities

Today, companies are employing direct mail marketing to fill a variety of brand-driven roles.

Direct Mail will:

• give a depth and dimension to your message
• drive potential clients or customers to a website or store offering opportunities for an immediate response or action
• help in collecting important customer data
• simply help you work smarter by allowing your brand work harder

With a majority of our clients turning to the internet more everyday…are you keeping up?

Hope you get some points!

Alice

SPECIALIZED MAILING SERVICES, INC.

Selling Ice To Eskimos.

Grandpa Davis is on the far right.

My grandfather was a salesman for National Cash Register during the great depression.  As was typical of that era, my Grandmother didn’t work.  Grandpa supported his wife, and four children, by selling cash registers during the worst of economic times…right up there with ice to an Eskimo or sand to an Egyptian I’d say.

Click here to read the Grandpa Davis story.

Truly inspirational!

Our quote of the day, “Being in business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you’re doing but no one else does.”

If you’re ready to get your message out there and need fresh, simple and creative marketing ideas to get your direct mail and online marketing working in tandem, give us a call.

Specialized Mailing Services consortium of graphic designers, creative folk and copy writers will provide simple and effective creative solutions to your direct mail and online marketing campaigns.

Until next time,

Alice

Writing a Newspaper Headline

Best Newspaper Headlines

When clients contact us to create Newspaper or Magazine Tear Sheet mailings for their businesses, we are often faced with a customer that needs assistance in writing an intriguing, fascinating and compelling newspaper headline. We’re often told by many business owners that writing an ad headline is one of those items on the to-do list that are better left to, “there are people for that”.

In the direct mail marketing and advertising world, it is understood that the headline you choose for your mail piece, advertisement, or web page is the most crucial part in getting your message read.  In fact, if you take a moment to think about your own behaviors, you’ll notice that you probably read the headline and if it doesn’t intrigue you, you don’t read on.  Do you?

Creating a powerful newspaper or ad headline is extremely painful for many business owners. More often than not, they will skip the step of creating a newspaper headline and will simply insert their logo instead. Not very compelling, but your competitors are in all probability using that same approach.  At least, you’re all working on a level playing field.

While our SMS virtual assistants were researching the topic of writing great newspaper headlines, they discovered Kenneth Beare on about.com. Kenneth has written a very informative and easy to implement article that will offer you everything you’ve always wanted to know about writing a powerful headline for your next advertising campaign.  Check it out!  Kenneth is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, trainer, and content developer. Kenneth specializes in ESL learning materials development.

We believe that Kenneth’s article will help shed some light on what it takes to write a compelling newspaper headline, so let’s get started!

But, if you’re still staring at a blank page or getting ready to rip your hair out, take a breath and relax in the knowledge that we have very talented copywriters for that and they’re all pretty much bald anyhow!

Contact us,  if we can assist you in writing powerful newspaper tear sheet and magazine tear sheet headlines for your next direct mail campaign.

Getting Your Customer’s To Say “Yes”

Getting Customer's To Say Yes

In the direct mail business, there’s only one indicator of good a creative direct mail strategy – your response rate!

Is your direct mail strategy converting to new customers or repeat sales?

If you want to build a complete direct mail campaign from scratch, or you simply want to fine-tune an existing direct mail campaign, let our expert direct mail strategists, copywriters and creative designers point the way to take you there.

If you’ve hesitated to test a direct mail campaign or creative design because you weren’t sure which elements to test or how to gauge the results, we can help you there, too.

Direct mail is still one of the most cost-effective marketing tools you can use to communicate with your target audience and inspire new customers to inquire about your business. The biggest advantage of direct mail is its ability to make it personal, one-to-one contact with customers and prospects at a relatively low cost with a high return on investment.

Just remember…it doesn’t cost anything to inquire…give us a call and let’s see what we can collaborate on!

Specialized Mailing Services, Inc. and Gary Halbert

Gary Halbert the "Prince of Print"

In the early 80’s, a writer/entrepreneur who, for privacy reasons we’ll call Bob, was scheduled to speak at a seminar promoting his latest book on economics. In an effort to boost attendance, Bob took out an advertisement in a local newspaper, purchased a thousand or so copies and tore out his ad.  Bob then purchased an mailing list of what he felt would be his target audience and enlisted the assistance of a friend who owned a small mailing business.  Together, they affixed a sticky note personally encouraging the recipient to attend the seminar, impact addressed a #10 envelope and mailed it using a live 1st class stamp.  The seminar was a huge success and Bob’s book wound up on the New York Times Best Sellers list for 9 weeks!

This is but one of the countless number of ways that newspaper tear sheets have been used to promote everything from diets, mortgage refinancing, speech writing and car sales, to name a few.  The “Atkins Diet” was originally promoted using a newspaper tear sheet and we all know successful that book became.

…and then along came Gary…

Newspaper tear sheet mailings have come a long way since that first seminar.  Gary Halbert, also known as the “Prince of Print” with his unique writing style and flair for thinking outside the box, took the newspaper tear sheet to a whole new level by developing it into an art form.  Now newspaper tear sheets, along with the hand written sticky notes, hand addressing, smaller colored envelopes that require “special” folds and even multiple stamps to comprise the first class postage, are making their way into the recipients hand and promptly getting opened… no “circular files” here!

Specialized Mailing Services, Inc., was a featured guest speaker at many Gary Halbert seminars attracting the attention of super marketers Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, Ted Nicholas, Danny Levinas, Michael Kimball and Brad Antin. SMS was Gary’s private source for both his “unique” packages, cool mail ideas and newspaper tear sheet mailings.

Specialized Mailing has processed millions of newspaper tear sheets and magazine tear sheets over the past 25 years, in addition to newsletters, support letters and some of the craziest mail “grabbers” to ever enter an envelope.

“Gary somehow always managed to get me to do the seemingly impossible, if not craziest things,” Alice said.  “Who mails dollar bills to people or wants 5,000 copies of a picture taken at the southern most point in the US?”  “Gary, that’s who”, reports Alice Mishica, Owner and President of Specialized Mailing Services Inc.

Alice states that,  “It becomes a personal challenge to make it happen for all of my clients who present me with unique mail ideas!” “It’s so great when we suddenly have that aha! moment and everything comes together. There are still an unlimited number of mailing tweaks and twists yet to be discovered – something new every day.” After 20 years of working with “The Prince”, I guess she’d know.

In an ongoing effort to further perfect the art of newspaper tear sheets, SMS, under Alice’s leadership, has formed partnerships with copywriters, graphic artists, creative producers, printers, list brokers and binderies making Specialized Mailing a true one stop shop for all of your direct mail solutions.

So, sorry, Consumer Reports.  The “Post-it Bandit” is alive and doing quite well, thank you.

Alice may be contacted at 714-274-2284 or visit www.SpecializedMailing.com

Ivanka Trump and Newspaper Tear Sheets

Increase Your Response Rates with Newspaper and Magazine Tear Sheets

Ivanka Trump being interviewed at the 2009 Glazer-Kenney Super Conference said, “One of the things I like to do, and this is something I’ve inherited from my family, is sending newspaper and magazine articles to family, friends and business associates that I feel they might find interest in.”

Ivanka went on to say, “My father doesn’t write letters and he’s never used email or a blackberry in his life, he doesn’t even have a computer.”

He’ll see an article in a newspaper or magazine and tear it out, if he thinks it’s informative in some way, and he’ll send it.  He’s been ripping out articles and sending them to me since I was a baby, always with a handwritten note on the top.

He does this to his friends and acquaintances, as well, and it actually allows him to form great relationships with people.
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So, there you have it Newspaper Tear Sheets and Magazine Tear Sheets are the perfect way to approach prospective and current customers, by sharing what is going on with your business and how they can benefit from it. What a great direct mail marketing idea to add to your marketing strategy.

Hand Addressed Mail and the Specialized P4 Process

Which letter would you open?

The Laser Label and a Bulk Mail Stamp

or…

Specialized P4 Process with Double Stamp & Cancellation

Specialized Mailing Services P4 Process employing cost saving tactics to reduce hand addressing time through technology.