Johnson’s World: Steve Tips His Hat

In the latest edition of Johnson’s World, Steve Johnson tips his hat to some direct mail marketing efforts that could have settled for being good, but instead went the extra mile to achieve greatness.

In my dual roles as CEO of a printing company and as a journalist covering the graphic arts, I receive a lot of marketing mail. Much of it is pretty good, and every now and then I receive a piece that is outstanding.

Today I’d like to tip my hat to some direct mail marketing efforts that could have settled for being good, but instead went the extra mile to achieve greatness.

My business mail is processed by our accounting department, who apply a quick and efficient sorting procedure that includes liberal use of a wastebasket and a shredder.

When my bookkeeper, with no prior print experience, hand delivers a mail piece to me while exclaiming “this is amazing” or “you’ve gotta see this!” I know we’ve found a winner.

Fantastic Folds

Müller Martini is a three-quarter-century old European manufacturer of bookbinding machinery. When you are selling bindery equipment, it might make sense to show off your binding prowess. Such was the case with the pre-drupa piece I received, folded in such an elaborate manner as to baffle me as to how it was done.

The fancy folds drew me in, but so did the photos of machines that were of interest to my business. Was it personalized using variable data? It doesn’t really matter how it was done, because it felt personalized to me.

Once I unfolded the piece (how could I resist?) a short message and a QR code invited me to register for drupa. Not going to drupa? A side note invited me to attend Hunkeler Innovationdays next February.

One way or another, Müller Martini is determined to get me to a show.

A Case for Paper

Most paper ads look pretty much the same. Beautiful, yes, but the same. Case Paper apparently realized this, so they broke the mold and pulled out all the stops for their 80th anniversary mailer.

The timeline-themed piece, a saddle-bound oblong book, contained every possible fold, die-cut, embellishment, and coating known to man…but wait, there’s more.

In this era of one-sentence tweets, paper merchant Case has rolled out (pun intended) a 12-page booklet overflowing with copy, every sentence containing a paper-related pun. It takes a half hour to read the thing in its entirety, partly because there is so much text and partly because you’ll stop every minute to examine and admire the print and finishing techniques.

Case Paper knows we’re not currently buying from them, so they’ve made sure we’ll think of them the next time we order paper.

Putting the Snail in Mail

As a rule I detest email advertising. I’m bombarded with spam, and I make great use of filters to thin out my inbox. Based upon this, it should come as quite a surprise that I read Dave Lewis’ Snailworks email newsletter.

I should be appalled that a company that earns its profits from direct mailing sends its newsletter via email. The email is unsolicited (I never subscribed), a practice I deplore. To top it off, I’m not even in the direct mailing business.

The catch is that the newsletter is so darn interesting. Short and sweet, arriving infrequently, these little email missives always contain informative and useful information about the performance of the United States Postal Service.

Brutally honest, chock full of data, I can’t help opening and reading these emails.

Snailworks has discovered that great content and useful information succeed with me every time.