At Home By Steve Poses- Affordable, Easy Dinner Party!

This is a Daily News video showing how a regular woman cooks a gourmet meal for her friends using Steve’s book. Here’s a link to the full article: http://tinyurl.com/yhw4ctt

At Home By Steve Poses

I recently began working with Steve Poses, a local celebrity chef and caterer who ran Frog and Commissary- two famous Philadelphia restaurants that launched the foodie revolution in Philly in the 70s and 80s.

Steve authored The Frog Commissary Cookbook- which sold 100,000 copies and has run Frog Commissary Catering – one of the most sought after event caterers in Philadelphia. Recently Frog Commissary took up residence in the Franklin Institute and is providing a unique dining experience there.

Steve also recently self-published a cookbook and companion website: At Home
Check out the book and website here- and also Steve’s blog here- which has great recipes and tips for entertaining at home for Thanksgiving, the holidays and beyond.

More to come on the marketing of this exciting new book and revolutionary publishing model- which offers book owners a companion Website, with live content, recipe updates and many features to come.

Steve signing books, and me and another helper selling books to his left.

As It Ought To Be

I was excited to find this wordpress- As It Ought To Be- which lends credibility and substance to the idea of blogging. On the site, a group of varied professionals, intellectuals and artists, post heartfelt and thoughtful content about subjects they’ve devoted their careers and lives to.

This is one of the best uses of a blog. Real content and not self-interested, self-promotional prattle. With topics ranging from immigration reform to critical theory and poetry- there is something for every kind of thinker on the site.

• Interesting Note- The name of the blog is taken from the Thomas Paine quote below.

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice.

Peer-to-Peer Mail

Software provider Centage addresses a letter to financial executives from its own chief financial officer

When mailing to a business audience, it’s always a challenge to get a package through the mail room, passed the administrative gatekeeper and into the right person’s hands.

Yet, getting into the decision maker’s hands is only half the battle. Once the busy executive has your message in hand, your mailing needs to immediately resonate with her or it goes straight into the recycling bin.

In its April mailing advertising Budget Maestro software, a financial management tool, Centage vied for credibility and relevance by tailoring its message specifically to its audience of financial managers.

The package arrives in an 11″ x 17″ kraft envelope with only a plain business address label. Enclosed are a one-page letter and a four-page, 8-1/2″ x 11″ glossy brochure. There is no reply device in the mailing, because the call to action directs prospects to call an 800 number or go online to find out more about the product and sign up for a 30-day trial or webinar (Archive code #836-699110-0907).

To establish credibility and relevance, the letter opens with a personal touch: “Dear Britt, Everyday senior financial executives like you, are analyzing their financial results … You’ve got to keep a tight handle on expenses and cash flow.” This “you-oriented” copy shows the prospect how Centage understands her professional role and how it can help meet her needs.

Another strength of the letter is that it’s written from Centage’s chief financial officer, John Orlando. Holly Intravia, director of marketing for the Natick, Mass.-based software provider, says that in the past she’s tried sending letters from the director of sales, but using the CFO as the signer adds a lot more credibility to the letter. There is also a paragraph about how Orlando was personally involved in developing the software to ensure it meets a CFO’s needs. “It adds some validity that our own CFO was involved in the product and is interested in sharing and educating prospective CFOs about the solution,” Intravia says.

In addition to the letter, a four-page, colorful brochure also addresses the financial executive’s needs head-on. “The brochure gives me an opportunity to convey more salient information in a different way than just a text-on-a-white-background letter,” Intravia shares. Budget Maestro’s benefits are clearly outlined throughout the brochure, along with snapshots of the software’s dashboard and reporting, to give prospects an image of what they can expect from the product. The copy, much like the letter, highlights how the product can help “you”—a financial officer—meet your goals.

There are bold, graphic calls to action throughout the brochure, and prospects have a choice of four responses: visit a landing page for a free 30-day product trial, visit a second landing page for a free webinar, call an 800 number or visit Centage’s homepage. The various calls to action help Centage determine where the prospect is in the buying cycle. “CFOs or controllers or VPs of finance don’t usually take that much time out of their day unless there’s some real interest in evaluating solutions,” Intravia says. For example, if a prospect signs up for a 45-minute webinar or a product test drive, he may be further along the buying path than someone who simply calls or visits the homepage.

When a prospect responds to the direct mail piece, the information is integrated into Centage’s CRM system, and a sales representative follows up with him. The company uses a tracking code and customer-provided data to attribute online responses to the direct mail campaign and to more accurately calculate ROI for the mailing. Intravia also says she does some email marketing to nurture those leads who come in through the mail and get them to sign up for a webinar.

Doing the work of a lift note, a Q-and-A on the back of the brochure, titled “5 Questions All CFOs Want Answered,” allays prospects’ doubts about the product. “You’re trying to anticipate their thinking, ‘OK, this sounds great, but how much time is it going to take? How much is it going to cost?’ … They’re reading the brochure and formulating these questions in the background, so now you’ve anticipated their questions and tried to put some answers to them,” Intravia comments.

Centage has been mailing a variation of this package for a few years, having also tested a postcard, a 6″ x 9″ self-mailer and a one-page letter with a 8-1/2″ x 11″ insert. This year’s mailing will determine how the larger, four-page 11″ x 17″ brochure will perform against last year’s smaller insert. Along with monthly direct mail drops from April through September, the company also advertises online and engages in email and telemarketing campaigns.

While it is too soon to calculate this year’s results, Intravia says the campaign is on track to perform as well as it did last year. She shares that past direct mail campaigns have brought in as much as a 300 percent total return on investment in revenue. “It’s much more than a breakeven,” Intravia notes.

Intravia plans to use her direct mail marketing’s healthy ROI to test more vertical messaging in next year’s mailings. Using design templates to produce variations on the mailing, she wants to address different industries’ needs with specific copy. “There’s certain industries where we’ve had a lot of success … I would want to test this package with very industry-specific messages. How our solution, the Budget Maestro product, can be tailored to help them budget for their particular industry needs,” she describes. The only challenge, she reveals, is finding new lists and further segmenting her lists to get enough volume and quality for a good return on a vertical mailing.

IDEA IN ACTION: Benefits of a One-Page Letter
You may be lucky enough to get your business mailing onto the decision maker’s desk, but you need more than luck to actually get your letter read. One tip to appeal to busy executives is to keep your sales letter short and sweet. “People are very busy these days, and there’s a lot of competition for their attention … So I think that a one-page letter, getting to the point as soon as possible, with the language that resonates with their daily challenges is sufficient to motivate them to take some action,” says Holly Intravia, director of marketing for Centage. “If you’ve got something attractive, interesting and engaging, and your message is right on, that’ll motivate the prospect to call you or go online to your website,” she adds.

(Originally published in October issue of Inside Direct Mail.)

Disney’s Self-Mailer Rolls Out Value

Disneyland puts its summer resort offer in lights in a deluxe self-mailer

Direct mailers who love self-mailers love them because they’re produced quickly and cost effectively, eliminate the problem of getting the envelope opened, and can really support a lot of creative that wouldn’t normally fit into a typical direct mail package.

In selling its resort offerings, Disney and its Disneyland resort have found self-mailers work best. “Being in direct marketing, we all know about #10 as one of the tried-and-true communication vehicles for direct response, but we … don’t use #10s and we pretty much just use self-mailers in terms of efficiencies in cost and speed to market,” says Patricia Rodriguez, CRM program manager II for Disney Destinations.

For its late summer Disneyland resort offer, Disney sent a deluxe self-mailer that folds out vertically into four panels on each side. The mailing dropped at the end of April, and along with an email component, it has been performing really well so far, bringing in more than 80 percent of the target sales the company wanted to achieve (with only 43 percent through the booking window).

When guests receive the mailing, they see teaser copy on one side, which reads, “See The Light — An amazing hotel offer and awesome entertainment make this summer sizzle at Disneyland.” Behind the copy, there are white lights and bright stars set against a night sky. On the address side, the “Save 35 percent” offer, travel dates and guest PIN number are all spelled out.

Once inside the mailing, the “See The Light” theme is carried out with an entire vertical, four-panel side of the mailing showcasing Disney’s Electrical Parade and fireworks show. Copy at the top reads, “See The Night In A Whole New Light!” and there are dragons, flames, bursts of fireworks and the iconic Disneyland castle lit up at night. The offer dates, discount and call to action (a toll-free number) are all repeated on the edges of the luminescent panel.

“That [panel] kind of served two purposes: One excites the children because it’s something that mom could share with the children, but also perhaps something that could be left as a leave behind … like a mini-poster for kids,” Rodriguez shares.

The remaining two sides of the panel show pictures of families enjoying the resort and reiterate the offer, call to action and benefits of vacationing with Disney. In addition to the toll-free number, guests also can visit a website to learn more about the offer, but they must book over the phone. An email communication that really pushed the offer, and featured similar creative, also was sent out around the same time as the direct mailing (Archive code #520-705739-0905).

Due to the down economy, Rodriguez says the traveler’s mailbox has become even more cluttered with competing resorts clamoring for bookings. In this crowded environment, Disney has decided to really push its offer. “We’ve definitely become more ‘retail-oriented,’ if you will, because we want to make sure it’s a hard-hitting sales message-that the guest understands what they’re getting and why it’s such a good deal and why it makes Disneyland, in this case, affordable for them to come [to] at this particular time,” she explains. Using the creative four-panel vertical self-mailer is another way the resort tried to break through the noise and clutter in the prospect’s mailbox.

Rodriguez uses data from past campaigns and proprietary targeting and segmentation to mine Disney’s internal and external lists for the best prospects. The prime guests are families with children, and Rodriguez says this and Disney’s other mailings tend to be geared toward moms in particular. “It’s the mom who goes through the mail … and is the decision maker, and she would be able to ‘sell’ the family on the vacation,” Rodriguez points out.

Disney sends several seasonal offers for its resorts throughout the year, and although this campaign did not include any tests, it regularly tests offers, creative, timing and channel, and does a full analysis of each campaign to come up with rich data to use in the next mailing. For next year, it might send or test this format again. “Potentially we could test this campaign against a simpler format if we did feel that this one paid out at the level that it needed to,” she says.

To determine plans for next year, Disney first must analyze the current campaign. “We’ll compare it to past campaigns, asking, ‘Did it perform as well as other campaigns did?’ ‘What’s the ROI on this versus maybe other direct mail formats that were simpler and less costly?’ and devise our strategy for next year,” Rodriguez reveals. One thing is certain, Disney will work hard to flourish in another competitive year of travel marketing. “We’re going to move into another year that’s going to be very similar to this year, in terms of vicious competition in the marketplace, so we’re always going to be ‘pushing the envelope’ without using an envelope,” Rodriguez laughs.

(Originally published in Inside Direct Mail, September 2009).