What Can Direct Mail Learn from Email?

Doing some reading and research, recently, we found this list from Digital Marketer, showcasing the best and worst email subject lines they had seen over their years of experience. The full list is worth reading, but what stood out to us were a few of the topics they believe are necessary elements of any successful email campaign. Here are three of the eight elements they suggest:

1 – Self-Interest
These are your bread and butter subject lines – you should be using them most frequently.
They are usually direct and speak to a specific benefit your audience will gain by opening the email. Self-interest subject lines also help pre-qualify openers by giving them a clue about your email’s body content.

2 – Curiosity
If self-interest subject lines work because they communicate a direct benefit of opening the email, curiosity-based ones succeed for the exact opposite reason. These peak the interest of subscribers without giving away too much information, leading to higher opens. Be careful though, because curiosity-based subject lines can get old fast and are the most likely to miss their mark.

3 – Offer
Do you like free stuff?  Do you like to buy things?
So does your email list. When you are giving something away or selling something your subscribers would be interested in, directly stating that in your subject line is a great way to convince them to open the email and learn more.

Notice anything?

These same topics and talking points would be just as at-home in a direct mail piece as they are in email. Really, what it comes down to is simple human nature. As much as some of us may not want to admit it, people are typically pretty predictable. By grabbing a consumer's interest with an eye-catching package, envelope, or postcard, you can dramatically improve the success of whatever piece of marketing that package is holding.

Simply sticking a coupon into a plain white envelope is not enough (except when it's exactly what's called for), and smart marketers and business owners are taking the extra time to develop more complex and interesting ways to deliver their marketing materials to their customers.

For the latest advances in print marketing, and information on how to take your mail pieces to the next level, contact us at 866.872.9249 or at info@trayinc.com

The Word of the Day: Integrate

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times: The secret to marketing success is cohesion. Ensuring that your print, digital, social, and even broadcast advertising acts as a cohesive unit is both the most important, and most complicated, aspect of your marketing strategy.

Today, we’re going to look at building cohesion between two marketing tactics on opposite sides of that spectrum: Social Media, and Print Marketing.

Adding Social Media to Your Print Marketing

Despite all of the predictions, complaints, and marketing criticisms, Social Media has proven that it isn’t going away any time soon. Consumers are more active on social channels today than they ever have been before. In fact, many marketing experts claim that social media has given consumers control over your brand, and that social advocacy is the real secret to winning word-of-mouth business in the new marketplace.

But how can you incorporate social into an ongoing marketing plan?

Your customers can be your best sellers, so why not put them to work for you. Select a few online reviews of your product or service from your Facebook or Twitter page, and include them on your next mailer. Not only will this help show off your existing brand advocates, but it will help drive traffic back to your social media channels – and thus to your website.

Adding Print Marketing to Your Social Media

There’s a reason the hashtag is still such a popular tool. It’s easy to use, it’s universally-recognized, and it’s the easiest way to add a social component to any marketing piece.

Including a branded hashtag or Twitter handle on printed flyers, bumper stickers, postcards, or envelopes gives people new ways to interact with your brand. Even if a consumer doesn’t remember your website URL from that sticker they saw on the back of a Jeep in a parking lot, chances are they’ll remember your hashtag.

Now that you’ve got their attention, your social media channels do the rest – pushing out branded messaging that users can engage with on their own time.

Make the Most of Your Print Marketing – Track It!

What’s your most successful print piece? Could you say without a doubt, or would it all be a guessing game? If you’re unsure where and how your ad dollars are going, it’s time to learn one of the most important tricks of the trade – tracking your print marketing ROI.

Check your call-to-action. What do you want your prospects to do with your print piece? How strong is the message, and is it clear enough that recipients will know what to do next? The call-to-action is vital and will serve as the core of your ROI tracking efforts. Be sure to include it on any and all promotional pieces.

Choose your tracking strategy. There are many choices when it comes to tracking the source of sales and leads. However, some of the most popular, and most successful, include customized website landing pages, QR codes, and coupon or promo codes tied to special offers.

Set up a control. In order to set a control, you need to track all of your print pieces at the get-go to see which campaigns are most successful and which are not. That way when it comes time to re-order from your print company, you know which offer performed best and can use it as the control piece. Now all that’s left to do is make adjustments to the weaker pieces using a new code.  

At the end of the new campaign, compare the results against the control. If the new campaign has performed better, it will replace the old control and the next campaign will be run alongside it to try to further improve response rates and ROI.

The Big How-To. Ok, now that you know what the basics, here’s how to track your ROI:

1.       Website Responses

·         Track web responses through PURLs (personalized landing pages), complete with a code customized for each user. PURLs can help guarantee more consistency between print and electronic media, but you can also use analytic tools, such as Google Analytics, to track the flow of the customer buying process.

2.       Response Codes

·         QRcodes, coupons and promos can all be used to track responses. The best way to encourage prospects to actually use them? Offer them something good. The better the offer, the more likely consumers are to use them, which in turn means, the more clear your ROI results will be.

Bonus Tip: When handing out materials, use a location-specific code so that you can see which regions are most responsive to your product or service.

So remember, get cracking on your ROI tracking and soon you’ll be seeing the fiscal rewards!

Do you have a great tip or strategy on tracking ROI you’d like to share? Tell us in the comments!

Print Media Still Dominates the Marketing Scene

With the quick and steady increase in social media’s popularity, many people have begun to question the importance, value, and relevance of print media.

Does print media no longer matter? Is it no longer relevant?

Is social media replacing the once-considered timelessness of print media?

These are important questions to ask. The quick and dirty is that print media definitely still matters, the details of which we will explain momentarily, which will shine brightly upon the multiple dimensions of print media’s relevance, value, and importance.

Furthermore, if you are questioning whether social media is replacing print media, the answer is an astounding no. You may remember from our post in Marcy, Social Versus Print: Why These Two are Friends – Not Enemies, that “As time moves forward, so does the progress in social and print marketing efforts and emerging avenues for integrating the two.”

But aside from the merging of social and print, where does print media’s relevance stand today?

That’s a great question and if we some great answers. Here they are:

     · Print is Portable – Even with laptops and smartphones, print media still retains the ultimate portability. It’s available to everyone, everywhere, regardless of service or power.

     · Print is Preferred – Many consumers still prefer traditional print material, such as magazines and newspapers, over electronic versions.

     · Print is Visible – While it’s true that sending and sharing electronic media is easier and faster, printed publications are often more visible to the average consumer. No specific keyword, special account, or access is required.

     · Print is Long-lasting– Unlike a window that may be closed, an ad that may be missed, or an e-mail that gets deleted, print media doesn’t go anywhere and can last practically forever.

     · Print is Professional – There is a credibility that is achieved in print that is harder to replicate online. A published article or business magazine carries far more weight than a PDF version found online.

     · Print is Advertising – While there are many different advertising channels, print media is still widely used in advertising. Brochures, flyers, pamphlets, catalogs, and posters are just a few examples. Most importantly, they exist in places where electronic media cannot.

Remember: Print media’s relevance and persistence is ubiquitous in the marketplace – the exact position you want to hold as well. If you want results, print them out and take them.

From social to print, we are going to take you places. Contact us to get started today.






The Tray Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.trayinc.com

The Tray Way: Marketing Tips You Can Learn from the Final Four

After a grinding college basketball season and a tough NCAA Tournament, we are down to the Final Four basketball teams in the country: Kentucky, Louisville, Kansas and Ohio State. Four qualified teams that have had to work hard to be in the position they are in.

So the question becomes, “who will win this weekend?” Sure, your brackets were filled out weeks ago and the decision on which teams to pick were based on everything from field goal percentage to locations of the schools.

We decided to make our Final Four game predictions based on what we know best: Branding, specifically taking the most visual representation the four teams have – their jerseys - and analyzing their colors and font styles to determine which represents the key ingredients needed to be winners.

In general, "reds" (and other “warm” colors) are more aggressive, exciting, energetic, and dominant. In contrast, “blues” (and other cool colors) are masculine, calm and tranquil.

As for fonts, those that are “blocky” and san serif imply power and strength, while serifed fonts offer a more traditional and classic feel.

While all of these descriptions can be beneficial at one point or another on the basketball court, based on our research and marketing experience, if it were on branding alone, Louisville and Ohio State would be meeting in the Finals.

Now, obviously, the teams will need a lot more than jerseys to be successful, which brings us to our broader point, These teams will not be basing their strategy on one specific aspect. They will be integrating several strategies in order to make situations work to their advantage. The same has to be done in the business world for marketing. Using the experience that print marketers have to develop a visually appealing and impactful piece of collateral is important, but it has to be part of an overall integrated marketing strategy. Images, combined with messages, distribution, technology and other components give you the best chance to be victorious.

The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.traypml.com

The Tray Way: Some Ink for Soy Ink

When it comes to environmentally-friendly practices in the business community, there are those that everyone knows about, and then there are those that are less famous, but can easily be used to differentiate those that are truly trying to make a difference and those that are simply paying lip service.

One example of this is soy ink.

Most don’t think about the actual ink on paper, but soy ink is beneficial for three reasons:

1. A soy-base is much more environmentally-friendly than what standard ink is made of: a petroleum-base. 
2. Using soy ink makes the paper it is used on more recyclable
3. Soy is more available in the United States, and therefore can be made here easier. 

Soy ink was the end-product of R&D done by, of all organizations, the Newspaper Association of America. In the late-1970’s, oil prices were skyrocketing and the NAA had the resources and expertise to conceptualize a more cost-efficient method for printing. It took nearly a decade, but the soy ink finally made its way to the consumer. Now, soy ink of all kinds exist, containing between 7% - 40% of the product. Approximately 25% of commercial printers use soy ink and it continues to grow as a commodity, so much so that on the National Soy Ink Information Center website – a site developed to popularize and educate the product – currently has this published on their website:

The National Soy Ink Information Center is now closed. Due to the success of the soy ink industry, we feel there is no longer a need to continue our work promoting soy ink and its acceptance through the National Soy Ink Information Center. In short, the soy ink industry is such a success that you don’t need us anymore!

The truth is that if you are using recycled paper, but are using standard-ink, you are only accomplishing a percentage of the green marketing capabilities you could be. Make sure the company you are using for all your print collateral has the knowledge and the experience to use the smartest strategy on your behalf. It is better for your company’s public perception, it is better for the country and better for the planet.

The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages.
information about the company and its successes, visit www.traypml.com

The Tray Way: Will Greenwashing Ever Be Scrubbed Out?

Greenwashing is the marketing practice some businesses undertake to represent themselves as a “green” company in order to attract specific demographics and create a unique persona within the marketplace, when in fact, they are not "green" at all.

Is it illegal? Not technically.

Is it immoral? Probably...but, that doesn’t stop companies in industries ranging from travel to baby care to non-profits (and, depending on with whom you speak, a beloved Dr. Seuss character may even be involved also) from developing certain messaging promoting themselves as forward-thinking when the truth is that their internal or external policies prove otherwise.

However, this practice is backfiring on companies, and while some individuals have strong opinions as to the backstory about why greenwashing continues, we choose to ask the question, "how can it be eliminated (or at least minimized)?"

The fact that a term has been invented to describe these types of negative strategies is a very good first step, and helps raise awareness. The second is to give companies credit that are trying to do things the right way, whether it be in a small or large capacity. For example, as an organization that has been certified and commended for being an authentic, environmentally-aware business, a company that chooses to use Tray for their print marketing needs should be able to present themselves as "green" organization for choosing to partner with a reputable firm. By encouraging those that are making any effort, we can  help build momentum towards a stronger, long-term solution. And, we are happy to help lead the charge towards scrubbing out greenwashing.

The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages.
information about the company and its successes, visit www.traypml.com

The Tray Way: What it Means to Create an Award-Winning Best Practice

It is hard for us to be disappointed with how our 2012 started.

Last week, the Print on Demand Initiative (PODi) announced that our organization won their Best Practices Award for digital printing, in the category of Marketing Resource Center for the DOT 2.0 project we did with DoubleTree by Hilton™.

We are extremely proud about the finished product, which was judged based on measured results, value proposition, functionality, scalability, relevance, creativity, and innovation. However, to get to the level of being a "Best Practice", it takes something extra, specifically a client / vendor collaboration that has a common goal of creating something that has the capability of being special.

The team of companies that worked on the "DOT 2.0" project had it in their mind to revolutionize a basic process for DoubleTree that many companies take for granted: Building a comprehensive, single-source, web-to-print toolkit for their international brand. In less than four months, the project team streamlined the collateral printing process of the entire company by creating a toolkit for each hotel property to utilize to develop their own specific promotional materials (e.g. door hangers, menus, key cards, conservation cards, stationery, vehicle signage, etc.). This process allows DoubleTree branding to stay uniform, but also allows for individual franchises to use unique add their unique information when necessary. Additionally, instead of two weeks for delivery, the printing and mailing takes closer to two days.

The goal, which we achieved, was for GMs and Directors of Sales to Directors of F&B and Front Desk Managers (or any hotel employee with the proper access) to order the items he or she needs – and any employee at all can reorder an item that was placed previously. This is especially important in an industry with a high employee turnover rate where the person who created a piece of custom collateral may no
longer be with the organization.

In all, to be recognized with an award for the development of a product that we worked hard on - and came out so successfully - is wonderful. However, beyond the outcome, it was the collaboration with the the client, and the fact that they were as pleased with the outcome as us that truly resonates, and in our mind, makes us a best practice.





The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages.
information about the company and its successes, visit www.traypml.com

The Tray Way: Where will Marketing be in 2012?

The end of the year is approaching, which brings with it the end of procrastinating on planning for 2012. While we have a lot of great things to remember about 2011 - especially on the award front, we are looking forward to the opportunities that are ahead of us. So, what is the marketing community thinking about for this upcoming year? There is lots to read about, but one item that caught our eye was a recent press release out of the Midwest regarding forecasting marketing budgets.

According to research by Under the Radar, a Chicago-based firm, most U.S.-based marketing brand managers intend to increase their budgets in 2012, as well as plan to develop even more innovative marketing strategies. Other predictions include:

• Brand marketing managers are quite optimistic about the first half of 2012 and increasingly even more optimistic about the second half of the year.
• ROI will be a key focus, with results surpassing “brand image” in regards to how the budgets are broken out.
• The winners in 2012 will be those brands that can capitalize on innovative experiential marketing opportunities and treat each prospect as a unique customer.

Working with clients in many industry sectors, we agree that 2012 will see a demand for increased focus on the actual dollars-and-cents return that marketing investments are having. For some, this will mean finding the newest technology or platform and jumping full-board into it in hopes that it is the "silver bullet." However, we see this as an opportunity for an experienced firm that has an expertise in all forms of marketing processes to test new, innovative strategies on proven platforms. By continuing the process of integrating one or more current marketing techniques (print, web, social media, etc.), it allows marketing experts to be marketing experts and push a strategy forward, as opposed to research and learn about another platform that is based around potential. Additionally, by evolving and learning from what we know, this will allow for the opportunity to bring tried-and-true marketing processes back to the forefront.

In the end, if 2012 can keep pace with 2011 in the marketing landscape, we are in for an exciting year.

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The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages.