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Ask lots of questions about what the customer is trying to achieve with a particular campaign. How will they measure the success? What do they think is critical to achieving the level of success they are hoping for? Is the color of the printed piece critical? What is being done to increase the impact of the piece on the recipient, and what can the printer do to help achieve the greatest impact?

These kinds of questions not only serve to let the customer know you are interested, they can also open up new ideas that can add value to the work you are creating. Perhaps the client wants dramatic impact, but has not considered whether gold foil or embossing or laminating could achieve that. It becomes an opportunity to put yourself in good graces with your customer by adding value to your partnership, and allows for opportunity to sell additional services. The caveat here is to make sure you are selling value, rather than simply selling.

Knowing What Works

Printers are often called upon by their customers to help them prepare and design their campaigns, and many printers have developed in-house capabilities to serve that need. Designing for direct mail certainly uses many of the same basic rules and tools of any printed document, but today there is a lot more being asked of printers than merely designing a job. Printers and their related design staff are being asked to work in a multi-media environment, and are expected to know not only good print design, but good Web design, and perhaps video messaging.

Knowing how to create Web pages, plus how to produce content for print and the Web are just a couple of examples of things which can make traditional commercial printers stumble.

Printers are accustomed to dealing with problems like formatting fonts, color management, dealing with images of the wrong resolution, or color space issues, which agencies that deal primarily with Web and video media may not even be aware of. This gives printers a leg up on the competition, and is something they should leverage when talking to their customers.

On the other hand, printers need to know what kinds of promotions work across platforms, and be acutely aware of how to make a promotion work equally well in different media arenas. Clearly what works for TV or on the Internet may not work in print. Putting together campaigns to take full advantage of the different types of media and provide a consistent "look and feel" across media types can go a long way toward a successful campaign. For this kind of information, printers will need to dig deeply into marketing tests and examples of successful promotions.

The Postal Regulations

Sure, your customers should be well-versed in how the U.S. Postal Service works. But you need to be even better. Giving a customer a tip on how to save a few bucks in postage will make them a friend for life. If you get a job all zip-sorted and bagged, and the post office won't take it, do you really think the customer is going to accept the blame for not knowing that this particular piece needs a different indicia? Postage costs and regulations are in continuous flux, so knowing the old rules won't do. Getting to know the managers of the local post office is possibly the very first thing you should do as a direct mail printing service provider. If they know you, and know you are trying to help them, they will be more likely to help you out when the clerk at the counter wants to bounce your latest mailing because of a policy change you weren't aware of.

Money To Be Made

Although the path to success in direct mail printing can be a rocky one, it can also be profitable. Printers who solve the inherent problems with managing data, software, machinery, and customers can charge premium rates if they can produce excellent results. It is, in more than one sense, a speciality niche area of the printing marketplace reserved for printers who can leverage their expertise with a thorough understanding of data management and multimedia distribution of that data. It's not an arena where the faint of heart will want to play, which is one of the reasons it can be a rewarding challenge.