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This article contains my version of the services that comprise the 2010 "Direct Marketer's Bill of Rights" — those "inalienables" that you have a right to expect from every direct marketing production vendor with whom you do business.
But guess what? Customer service isn't even on the list. Read on and you'll see why.
1. Package Ideas Galore
Your DM production vendor should offer you years of experience and tons of ideas. With that experience should come the ability to not only evaluate your campaign concept and strategy, but offer concrete suggestions on how to improve it — I mean real, workable, creative suggestions.
2. Package Efficiency Obsession
Just like you, a direct marketing production vendor is in the game to make money — but not at your expense. In fact, if the company has been in business awhile, it's stayed solvent by actually saving you money. It knows how to make every job that comes in the shop more cost-effective and optimally time-efficient. It's simply what the vendor does.
3. Follow-Up Compulsion
After your package has dropped, the results come in. That's when you (and your boss) learn whether or not the campaign was effective. A seasoned direct mail vendor is just as interested in those results as you are.
If the results are good, you'll be back. If not, you'll want to know the reason why. By including your direct marketing vendor when you are studying and tracking what's happened, it will be able to help you interpret the results.
4. The Big Picture View
The direct mail campaign you're planning or the one you've just completed are important, but they're only one part of the overall effort, right? To do the best job for you — and advise accordingly — provide your direct marketing production vendor with the details on how each direct mail event fits into the bigger campaign picture.
5. List Advice
It's a DM rule of thumb that the list(s) you select spell the single most important component of your campaign's success. If your DM production vendor knows its way around a list enterprise and how to export and import data with your database, you've just found a direct marketing production partner who will make your life easier.
6. Postal Expertise
Anybody who's been in this business a year knows enough not to "go it alone" with the U.S. Postal Service. Even people who've been around since forever sometimes get confounded by the bureaucracy, change and technology that comprise mail delivery. Your DM production vendor absolutely, positively must be expert in postal matters.
But guess what? Customer service isn't even on the list. Read on and you'll see why.
1. Package Ideas Galore
Your DM production vendor should offer you years of experience and tons of ideas. With that experience should come the ability to not only evaluate your campaign concept and strategy, but offer concrete suggestions on how to improve it — I mean real, workable, creative suggestions.
2. Package Efficiency Obsession
Just like you, a direct marketing production vendor is in the game to make money — but not at your expense. In fact, if the company has been in business awhile, it's stayed solvent by actually saving you money. It knows how to make every job that comes in the shop more cost-effective and optimally time-efficient. It's simply what the vendor does.
3. Follow-Up Compulsion
After your package has dropped, the results come in. That's when you (and your boss) learn whether or not the campaign was effective. A seasoned direct mail vendor is just as interested in those results as you are.
If the results are good, you'll be back. If not, you'll want to know the reason why. By including your direct marketing vendor when you are studying and tracking what's happened, it will be able to help you interpret the results.
4. The Big Picture View
The direct mail campaign you're planning or the one you've just completed are important, but they're only one part of the overall effort, right? To do the best job for you — and advise accordingly — provide your direct marketing production vendor with the details on how each direct mail event fits into the bigger campaign picture.
5. List Advice
It's a DM rule of thumb that the list(s) you select spell the single most important component of your campaign's success. If your DM production vendor knows its way around a list enterprise and how to export and import data with your database, you've just found a direct marketing production partner who will make your life easier.
6. Postal Expertise
Anybody who's been in this business a year knows enough not to "go it alone" with the U.S. Postal Service. Even people who've been around since forever sometimes get confounded by the bureaucracy, change and technology that comprise mail delivery. Your DM production vendor absolutely, positively must be expert in postal matters.
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