Behind the Sends: How Our Creative Project Managers Invigorate Direct Mail Strategies

A successful direct mail strategy is comprehensive.

For every campaign, you have to manage a lot of moving parts—not to mention come up with something creative to catch your audience’s attention. Our platform solves the logistical problems of your direct mail campaigns. An artistic vision, however, can only come from humans.

That’s where Sendoso project managers come in.

They work with hundreds of vendors to craft the exact items our customers need: branded coffee kits, wine bottles, and cupcakes to custom video mailers, swag, and packaging materials. We’ve even sourced custom Legos!

Although we do have a network of trusted vendors we work with, we’re also happy to source from any vendor that you prefer. Check out the amazing coffee pop-up card from our partner vendors at Lovepop above.

And that’s just the start. Keep reading to learn how our amazing project managers can energize your direct mail strategy.

Our Direct Mail Strategy & Project Management Process

1. Discovery Call

So let’s say your marketing team wants to run a campaign to celebrate the new year. You’ve got a few ideas of what you could do (maybe a “New year, new you” theme or a “Blast off in 2019!” message), but need some help with putting the whole concept together. Our project managers would set up a quick call with you to understand your ideas and needs for the campaign: Who is the campaign targeting? How many people are we targeting? What’s the budget? What’s the call to action? When do you want to send it?

On the call, you explain that want to get prospects and customers excited to work with you in 2019. You want to send the campaign to all of your customers, but maybe only prospects who are in the opportunity stage of your sales cycle. We go over your budget and then try to help you flesh out a goal for this part of your direct mail strategy, such as driving people to book meetings with your team in Q1. Then our team goes to work.

2. Idea Brainstorm

Based on the information from the discovery call, our project managers will send over a list of ideas for your team to review. Let’s say you felt strongly about the “New year, new you” theme. You might receive ideas like sending fun LED star wands (for new year’s wishes), an inspiring “Just go for it” poster (for a new you) or practical leather-bound notebooks (for new ideas). Or, if you were leaning toward the “Blast off in 2019” message, the ideas might include a fun kit complete with a moon stress ball, astronaut ice cream, and rocket-themed marketing collateral.

The brainstorming part of your direct mail strategy is a collaborative effort. Once you review the ideas, you then get to provide feedback, choose which direction to move forward with, and select the items you want to order. Our team will also share options with you for customizing the send, such as a using a themed box, branded tape, or colorful crinkle paper.

3. Ordering & Best Practices

After your team approves the final itemized list and product proofs, Sendoso handles the rest! That includes ordering, shipping, storing, and inventory tracking. We recommend sending yourself a sample of the final product so you can see exactly what it looks like and make any changes before you send it to your group of prospects/customers.

Sendoso’s project managers are proactive when explaining timelines and process, especially when it comes to working with third-party vendors. (For example, many of our customers send perishable items like cookies, cupcakes, and flowers, but some vendors only accept orders on Mondays and Tuesdays. So if you place an order on Wednesday, it may not be processed until the following Monday).

They’re also chock-full of helpful tips and tricks, such as including a name and contact information with each handwritten note (written by our very own hand-writers!) and waiting a few hours after you receive a notice that a package has been delivered to ask your recipient how they liked it (because it might be stuck in the mailroom or on a secretary’s desk).

More than anything, our team’s goal is to ignite creativity in your campaigns. We’re not a creative agency, but our team has a repository of gift ideas and previous direct mail campaigns for reference and inspiration. We take the time to listen to your needs and work tirelessly to bring your vision to life.

Not a Sendoso customer yet? Catalyze your direct mail strategy with the creative ideas in our most popular eBook below.

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