A recent survey revealed that many executives who work with printers are still optimistic about the future of the medium, according to Print in the Mix. The survey polled 485 members of Xerox’s Premier Partners Global Network and discovered that more than 70 percent of these respondents claimed to remain optimistic about the future.

Of all the various outlets and avenues for print to participate in, direct marketing represented the most positive and hopeful channel for the future, with 38 percent of respondents believing that this channel can provide new or increased revenue. Ranking a distant second was packaging and photo specialty products, tied at 18 percent of respondents each, while TransPromo and book publishing rounded out the table of print revenue opportunities.

The data collected from this survey jibed with another recent report that looked at things from the consumer side. The latest Marketing-GAP survey, conducted by fast.MAP, revealed that more than half of consumers said they would miss printed advertising for products and services more than any other medium. In contrast, approximately a third said they would miss online advertisements, and less than 20 percent said they would miss telemarketing calls and door-to-door sales. This bodes well for direct mail marketing executives, as consumers have clearly indicated a preference in that department over other advertising formats.

A recent poll from Harris revealed that parents are more apt than consumers without children to use print and online coupons to save money. Of the respondents, 33 percent of parents said they were looking for discounts and special offers through clipping coupons or printing digital promo codes, compared to just 26 percent of respondents who did not have children.

When the survey examined the sources of these coupons and savings, the value of direct mail among the parental demographic became readily apparent. Using coupons that arrive at their home through the mail was the preferred choice for 31 percent of surveyed parents. This was tied with clipping coupons from newspaper inserts for the most popular source. Following behind were other digital and high-tech options, including merchant email offers (30 percent), online coupon sites (29 percent), opt-in email offers from retailers (23 percent) and promo text alerts from retailers (14 percent).

With the high response and conversion rates of direct mail campaigns and printed catalogs, marketers are diverting more of their resources toward this promotional tactic. However, the cost of printing and mailing catalogs and other direct mail pieces can still be prohibitively high for many companies, especially small or medium sized businesses. Here are some tips on how to maximize your printing budget for catalogs and other mailers and get the most return on investment (ROI) possible.

Co-mailing for considerable savings
Co-mailing has been proven to present numerous savings benefits for companies. Retail Online Integration recommends insisting to your printer that each catalog drop have the maximum co-mail savings possible, even if in-home delivery dates have to be shifted around. Additionally, make sure that your co-mail estimates have included all related costs when its presented to you at the final budget decisions.

“Over the past two years we started co-mailing our smaller-volume niche catalogs at considerable savings,” Gay Smith, the marketing director for Hodges Badges Company, told Deliver Magazine. “For us, it’s all about focusing on the right market and positioning our products in the right way.”

According to a recent industry report, companies are struggling to accurately measure the direct impact of social media marketing campaigns. This lends further credence to long-held beliefs that direct mail campaigns remain a hallmark of marketing efforts, due in no small part to the efficacy of measuring direct marketing results.

The September 2012 report, from Econsultancy/Adobe, revealed that nearly three quarters of survey respondents said it was very difficult to effectively measure the impact of social media marketing tactics. Another two thirds suggested that their companies had no clear social media activity objectives, in stark contrast to direct mail campaigns which are known to have stated end goals.

Additionally, 20 percent of client-side businesses described their company’s ability to measure social media’s impact as being almost none, while 12 percent of agencies admitted the same of their clients. The deepest level of social impact reached and tracked across the board was engagement, with 57 percent of company respondents saying that had some form of interaction with clients. However, engagement is merely surface level tracking, unable to provide the depth of information that marketing executives rely on.