Thursday, July 28, 2011

Everyday Creativity

Yesterday several of us from our sales team at Heritage headed over to the Moore Chamber of Commerce to attend a workshop titled Everyday Creativity by DeWitt Jones, presented by Jan Astani. We had a great time looking at things in a new perspective, and thinking outside the box!



Curtis even made a friend.



(This picture is more disturbing than I realized. Sorry, and somehow me saying “you had to be there” doesn’t help much either. Oh well, you had to be there.)

Dewitt Jones is one of Americas top professional photographers. Twenty years with National Geographic, photographing stories all over the globe, has earned him the reputation as a world-class photojournalist. As a motion picture director, two of Dewitt’s films were nominated for Academy Awards.

His definition of creative is “the ability to look at the ordinary and see the extraordinary.”

Jan did a wonderful job walking our group through the 9 Steps of Creativity…
• Looking at the ordinary and seeing the extraordinary
• Every act can be a creative one
• Creativity is a matter of perspective
• There’s always more than one right answer
Reframe problems into opportunities
• Don’t be afraid to make mistakes
• Break the pattern
• Train your technique
• You’ve got to really care

Since I don’t have the rights to use Dewitt’s material I better stop there with the descriptions and definitions…I’m sure he’d prefer you go to your own workshop and hear it for yourself. (That was my creative response, my real response here is I don’t wanna get my rear-end sued for using his stuff without permission!)


If you find a fabulous presenter (like Jan Astani) offering Everyday Creativity, I highly recommend you attend. It was very eye opening.

I will leave you with one thought that I gleaned from the presentation. The quote “put yourself in the place of most potential” really got me thinking. Are you putting yourself and your business in the place of most potential? Are you reaching out to your clients in a way to gain the most potential? Often we do things “just because” or “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” BUT in doing that “thing”, are we putting ourselves and our business in the place of most potential. I can’t stop thinking about it…and I encourage you to think about it too.

Now I’m off to be creative! Okay, first I’ll get some coffee, THEN I’ll be creative.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Firsts.

When you do something FIRST you want it to count. You want it to be special, amazing, wonderful, and you want people to be wowed! Our friends over at STAPLEGUN got that chance. Their task: create the inaugural invitation for the First female Governor in the State of Oklahoma, Mrs. Mary Fallin. (This invitation will likely be on display at the Oklahoma History Center until, oh…probably the end of time….no pressure there.) Obviously pressure doesn’t get to those guys, because they literally knocked this project out of the park!



They created a classy and timeless invitation that wowed many as they arrived in mailboxes. (I never actually got one in the mail, it must have gotten lost. Surely, I was on the list….I waived at her when she was in the Edmond Liberty Fest Parade in 2009…we bonded.)

The invitation packet consisted of a booklet , an official invite, the response card, and an embossed envelope. It’s really quite impressive. After we delivered the finished product we then entered the piece into print competitions where we said things like “110# Classic Crest Solar White Cover, 4 color + PMS + Flood varnish, wet trap 2 side, 1 silver flat foil, 1 silver foil emboss.” (If you know what all that means, the FIRST step for you is admitting you have a problem.)


The piece won a local award and 3 National awards that we thought we should mention…
2011 Bronze Addy
Best of Category -
2011 Graphic Excellence Awards
Award of Recognition –
2011 Premier Print Awards
Neenah Paper –
Silver Award 2011 Text & Cover Competition

We’d like to thank
STAPLEGUN for allowing us the honor to be a part of this FIRST for the State of Oklahoma!



Thursday, July 14, 2011

Personalized Direct Mail + PURLS = Marketing Strategy

We tell our customers all the time how personalized direct mail combined with PURLS can greatly increase their response rates. But, each time we get more data that backs up that statement, we like to share it! People like proof.

Recently this article was posted at PrintJunkie.net. (YES, there is a website for those addicted to print. The first step is admitting you have a problem.)



When you're done reading it, you'll say to yourself, "Can Heritage help me do all that? " The answer is, YES! Yes we can!

A recent article highlighted a prominent Midwest university who successfully deployed direct mail with a PURL to appeal to honors students as part of an admissions campaign. An A/B split test was conducted to research the affect of utilizing variable data printing in a marketing campaign.

Variable data printing tailored the direct mail postcard to the individual student’s interest in major, gender and whether or not they had visited the campus. Images and text were aligned to reflect the individual’s data. The PURL directed the students to a personalized landing page. For the other students, the Midwest university sent a more general mailing.

The university reported a 32% increase in student enrollment in 2010 over the prior year. 91% of those who registered were recipients of the PURL campaign. The use of a more focused mailer resulted in a 29% savings in printing costs.

“It’s all about making it relevant versus having high volume.”

At the same time, a non-profit organization used a personalized postcard and PURL to appeal to donors as part of their annual giving campaign. It reported that their normal donation rate is 2% to 3%. This campaign returned a 14% donation rate. “This is a bit more expensive, but it drove more conversions.”

“The trend is toward more efficiency and figuring out a multichannel approach with a much more layered cadence of communications.”

As online marketing becomes more saturated, innovations in printing and production are driving more marketers to use traditional channels to drive multichannel efforts.

How are you using direct mail in your multichannel marketing mix?