Ever wondered what separates a forgettable ad from a campaign that wins industry acclaim? It's rarely about flashy production or massive budgets. The real magic happens when marketers deeply understand their audience and deliver content that genuinely resonates.
We analyzed several years' worth of award-winning print ads to identify common themes. Here's what we found:
Marketing success isn't just about generating leads. It's about strategically guiding customers through each phase of the buyer's journey. This systematic approach, known as lead nurturing, involves presenting the correct information at the time your prospects need it most.
When it comes to lead nurturing, one of your most potent tools is content marketing. According to BPM Online, which offers a platform for process-driven CRM, B2B marketers overall allocate 28% of their total marketing budgets to content marketing. However, companies that achieve the best returns from this channel tend to allocate up to 46% of their budgets to content marketing.
You're preparing to launch your next direct mail campaign. You've updated your mailing list and identified your target variables, but what about your messaging? If you've been targeting the same customer base for a while, it's critical to regularly evaluate your approach to prevent things from going stale.
Here are five areas where a refresh might be in order:
Want to capture your audience's interest and drive purchases? Use psychology! One helpful model is Dr. Robert Cialdini's framework for persuasive marketing. His six concepts—limited availability, mutual exchange, credibility, peer validation, connection, and commitment—can be enormously helpful for improving outcomes and prompting swift customer action.
Here's an overview of each principle:
Design trends change. Fonts change. Even the way people browse catalogs and ads shifts over the years. However, some marketing techniques remain timeless. They strike chords so profoundly rooted in human psychology that they deliver results decade after decade.
Want proof? Look no further than the grand controls in the Who’s Mailing What! database. “Grand controls” are direct mail campaigns that have run for years (sometimes decades) because they continue to work. Studying them reveals which offers and techniques consistently resonate with audiences.
Every buyer is unique. Yet, certain principles of human behavior apply to nearly everyone. Understanding these principles can help you guide your direct mail and digital marketing strategies more effectively.
Ross Kimbarovsky, founder and CEO at Crowdspring, an online marketplace for crowdsourced creative services, has synthesized these principles into five helpful marketing hacks that can transform your offers from “I’ll get to it later” to “I need to act on this right now!”
Consumers prefer buying from brands they trust, and often, the first point of contact with your brand is your company logo. This makes it even more important to have a logo that fosters confidence. Every time customers see your logo, whether it’s on a postcard or a piece of marketing collateral, it has the power to strengthen or weaken their trust. You want it to enhance their confidence, but what makes a logo trustworthy?
Let’s take a look:
In today’s “always on” digital environment, the world is at our fingertips. Open, click, view, buy, comment, download. Anything you want. It’s all right there. Even so, book readership is on the rise, and a recent Association of National Advertisers study found that direct mail delivers a higher return on investment (ROI) than any digital channel. Why? Because “digital everything, everywhere” gets old sometimes.
Let’s look at four reasons people still embrace the value and allure of print.
Customer values and behavior are constantly changing. When this occurs, do your print marketing strategies track with them? The formats you choose, the messaging you write, and the layouts you create are all impacted by consumer trends.
Let's look at four trends that are popular right now:
Want a strong, recognizable brand identity? Creative and engaging marketing pieces are essential, but if those designs aren’t consistent across channels, your brand might be memorable, but not necessarily perceived as professional. That’s why it’s crucial to maintain consistent branding across all channels. Consistency keeps your business top of mind, fosters trust, and reinforces your credibility.
How can you ensure your brand looks cohesive, regardless of which channel(s) customers use to engage with you? Here are five ideas to get started:
When designing a printed piece, how much attention do you pay to the grain of the paper? This is particularly important for pieces that require crisp, clean folds. Aligning your design with the paper grain can make a significant difference in the final result.
What is paper grain? It refers to the direction in which the paper fibers are aligned during the papermaking process. This alignment affects the paper's strength, flexibility, and ability to fold smoothly or resist bending.
Sustainability has become a core value for many consumers and businesses. However, as brands rush to position themselves as environmentally responsible, a growing challenge has emerged: greenwashing.
What exactly is greenwashing? Greenwashing is the practice of making misleading, exaggerated, or unsubstantiated claims about a company's environmental practices or a product's eco-friendliness. Greenwashing can take many forms, from buzzwords like "eco-friendly" and "natural" on product packaging (with no supporting evidence) to images of greenery and leaves in a direct mail piece that implies sustainability without proof.
You've invested time, money, and effort into winning great customers. You have ongoing marketing programs to help keep those relationships strong. But what happens when customers stop buying anyway? Instead of watching them go, reignite their interest instead. Direct mail is one of your most powerful tools for doing it.
Here's why direct mail is uniquely positioned to bring lapsed customers back:
Everyone wants to nail their direct mail campaign or deliver a winning multichannel marketing strategy. But success takes more than a bold idea. It demands coordinating people, resources, and timelines, all anchored by strong project management.
Whether you’re managing direct mail, marketing collateral, email, or mobile campaigns, here are six practical steps to move your project from idea to execution on time and within budget.
Want the perfected printed piece? Finish it with the perfect fold. But communicating about folds can be tricky when you don't know the lingo. Let's look at some of the basic terms:
Panel. A "panel" is the two-sided section of the printed piece defined by the fold. When you look at a standard "3-fold brochure," you are talking about a 6-panel brochure.
As the old saying goes, “Sometimes, less is more.” That’s a key trend we have been watching in packaging for some time.
It’s called “minimalist design,” which strips away the visual excess and retains only the necessary elements of the product or brand. Brands that exemplify minimalism include Apple, COS (Collection of Style), and Aesop, whose simple, clean layouts are iconic and stand out against the sea of visually busy packages characteristic of many products.
Do you think all printers are the same? Not at all! Even though two print shops might have the same equipment, they might have very different philosophies, quality standards, and customer relationships. To help you find the right partner for your printing needs, here's a quick checklist of questions you'll want to ask during the vetting process.
1. Do they prioritize customer service? From the first interaction, you should feel valued. Your printer should listen to you, take the time to walk through your options, and help you find solutions when you're stuck.
When you create marketing campaigns, are you reflecting your value proposition in everything you do? You might think you only sell products, but it’s more than that. Think about a company like Campbell’s. Sure, the company sells soup, but its tagline is “Mmmm, Mmmm. Good.” Its ads show families around the table, enjoying a meal together. The company’s value proposition isn’t, “We sell soup.” or “We help you create healthy meals your family can enjoy together.”
Innovative companies know their value proposition and communicate it, directly and indirectly, every time they send a direct mail piece, blast an email, or design product packaging.
Not every print piece needs a “wow” factor, but what happens when it does? Maybe you are launching a new line of high-end clothing or cosmetics or have an audience for luxury goods you want to impress. That’s where print embellishments come in. Print embellishments are visual or tactile add-ons that create a higher level of engagement than even the best 2D designs can do.
When you need that extra “wow” factor, consider one of the following options:
Are you looking to boost your marketing results by going multichannel? Businesses looking to amplify their direct mail efforts often pair direct mail with email. That's a great strategy. But you know what else is a great strategy? Pairing direct mail with social media.
What makes direct mail and social media so complementary? Customers love direct mail and social media and use and respond to each channel differently. Print's tangibility leaves a deeper footprint in consumers' brains, resulting in more accurate recall and higher buying intent. At the same time, social media is proven for ongoing, spontaneous communications that keep your customers entertained and engaged. With both channels providing different benefits, why not pair the two?
