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Amazingly, many companies still don't understand the true value of a good direct mail campaign. Instead they focus all of their efforts on digital methods or other advertising and marketing methods that don't include a direct mail strand. The consequence of this strategy is that they miss out on one of the most effective and trusted methods of marketing a company and its products or services. This post looks at some ways in which you can get the most out of a direct-mail marketing campaign.

Your first step is to ensure that you know who your customers are. If you can truly target your mailing campaign to people who actually buy from you or want to buy from you, you have a better chance of succeeding. This means identifying who your target customers are and ensuring that you send a mailing campaign to these people only, rather than sending out a 'blanket bomb' approach to mailing that covers most of the town. Be sure to think big though. You must send out a direct-mail campaign to a targeted audience of at least 500 people for it to be effective in any way.

Another effective technique that will boost your return on investment with direct mail is to make the mailings as personal as possible. Some companies really work hard at this and they know that the more personal the direct-mail campaign is, the more likely it will be opened and engaged with. Many direct mail companies offer a service that provides personalised mail, even to the extent of using handwritten envelopes. You can even appeal to the tastes of the people you are trying to reach, by offering treats inside the mail, from sweets to perfume samples. All of this makes sure the mail seems more personal and more targeted to your customers. Done effectively, it goes a long way to making your direct mail campaign a great investment.

Keep it professional

Direct mail campaigns should be treated as professional marketing campaigns, which means that you should think about the aspects of a professional marketing campaign that you could use with the direct mail campaign. One of the biggest aspects is maintaining an appropriate level of contact. Many companies send out one letter or a postcard, and then leave it at that. This is counter-productive. The best thing you can do with your direct mail is to send out at least three mailings as part of your campaign. This means you are establishing contact, maintaining that contact and sending out a clear message. It also makes you appear more professional, because you are committing time to discussing your company and products and services with potential customers.

Direct mail is still a useful and very effective way of reaching out to customers and developing relationships. Make sure you follow the few ideas outlined in this post and you should be one step further to producing an effective direct-mail campaign that brings in revenue.

Direct mail is still regarded as one of the most effective and personable ways with which to conduct marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, in a world where email marketing and social media are just a click away, this treasured form of communication has developed a reputation of being somewhat cumbersome to administer.

The main reason for this is that direct mail campaigning requires time, skill and experience in order to make it effective. Few businesses have the resources available to develop those three attributes which is why mailing houses can prove to be something of a revelation for firms wishing to communicate directly with their customers. 

The concept is simple enough. Businesses can outsource their direct mail campaign to a company which produces and sends it for them. Simple. But how does the business in question benefit from such a service?

Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, mailing houses offer a serious time saving benefit for their clients. Printing, packing and sending even the smallest of mailouts is a job for which few businesses have specific staff available, and those that do undertake it are likely to do so begrudgingly. As a result, they can be done in a hurry and risk damaging the company’s brand with a substandard mailout. 

For example, if a company sells conservatories, it should be focussing on convincing potential customers of the benefits such a purchase would bring. It doesn’t need staff folding fliers and licking envelopes.

Mailing houses also offer a very real cost saving. Printers capable of producing customer-ready fliers and leaflets aren’t cheap, and nor are the running costs for keeping them topped up with ink and high quality paper. Staff need paying too, and if they are spending more time franking envelopes than getting on with the task for which they are employed, overheads can become significantly distorted.

Perhaps most importantly, direct mail marketing isn’t easy. At AMS, we have over ten years experience printing, packing, delivering, database managing and handling responses. For any marketing campaign to be truly effective and to offer a satisfying return on investment, it needs care and attention and the ability to bring all of those elements together. The end result of outsourcing direct mail will ensure the recipients are presented with professional and engaging mailings which will encourage them to become paying customers.

Over the years Direct Mail has been and continues to be one of the most cost effective ways of reaching the people you want, when you want.

Main Benefits of Direct Mail

• Tailored – Can be highly personalised to improve impact and help increase response rates.
• Highly Targeted – reach only the audience you want to reach, saving money and reducing environmental impact.
• Less Intrusive – it can be opened at a time to suit the recipient and can be referred to when it is convenient for the recipient to respond.
• Tangible – can be kept for future reference or can be passed on as a warm lead to someone else.
• Flexible – can be as detailed or simple as you require.   You are not constrained by space or time unlike other forms of marketing.
• Time Controlled – often marketing material can be more effective if the delivery time can be controlled. With a full range of delivery speeds this can easily be achieved.
• Measurable – you can include an easy response method such as application forms and reply paid envelopes.  It is also easy to measure the cost of every response which can help when planning your next campaign.
• Easily Tested – small test cells can easily be tested prior to committing to full implementation of direct mail campaign.
• Reliable – Lets you get your message directly into the hands of the audience you want to reach.  Unlike e-mail marketing which can often be blocked by ever sophisticated spam filters.
• Universal Acceptance – Direct Mail can be received by everyone in society  as no need to pre-own of have experience of technology.
• Attention Grabbing – whilst reading direct mail, you can be sure you have the reader's undivided attention. 

Examples

Here are just a few examples of what Direct Mail can do for your business.

• Generate new business;
• Build relationships and maintain the loyalty of existing customers;
• Create awareness of new products and services;
• Promote special offers and events;
• Provide information on Company's current of future activities.

One of the best things about using direct mail as part of your marketing strategy is the fact that, unlike many other channels, you can be as creative as you want to be. There are so many options available to you across the design, copy, and composition, that you have a great opportunity to make the most of what direct mail has to offer.

Four ways to think outside of the box with your direct mail campaign:

1. Give something away

Everyone likes a freebie. If you send your direct mail campaign with a little surprise contained inside, your audience is more likely to open it and, by extension, engage with your company in the way that you want them to. This option isn’t just available to companies that actually supply products, service providers can get in on the action too. What’s more, no matter what your design, you can shout about what you are offering on the mailings external packaging as well as in the direct mail piece itself. If you are offering the right freebie, you should see higher levels of response.

Why not make your gift seasonal, for example, a voucher for some suntan lotion or garden products for the summer.

2. Make your point in an unusual way

Who says that you have to be conventional with the way that you present the information in your direct mail campaign? Why not try something different such as printing your message backwards or upside down, not only will people look twice, but curiosity will get the better of them and they will want to find out more. Being a bit different is something most brands can get away with.

3. Offer a discount competition entry

This follows on from the freebie suggestion made earlier. Offering a discount or opportunity to win something will encourage the recipients to respond to the call to action you set – either by entering the competition or taking advantage of the discount being offered. This is great for encouraging a brand switch or trial of the products or services your company offers. If your product or service is as good as you say it is, and why wouldn’t it be, you are bound to pick up some new customers.

4. Send a postcard

Consider a move away from the standard A4/A5 letter in a windowed envelope – why not send a postcard. People always read postcards, the information is right there to see and furthermore, the recipient doesn’t have to open anything to be able to see the information, it’s the height of convenience. You may even get some interest from people who see your mailing when it’s being delivered.

We are bombarded with marketing messages from many different sources on a daily basis. It has never been more important to differentiate yourself, a creative direct mail campaign can really set you apart from your competitors.

Which format is best is a common question we are often asked when quoting for direct mail campaigns. 

There are clear positives and negatives to both solutions, and in most cases the decision comes down to individual preference. However from our experience the following factors should be considered when deciding which option to choose.

Price

• Polywrapping will typically always be less expensive than the equivalent envelope enclosing. 
• There are more Royal Mail services where you can achieve greater postage discounts when using envelopes over polywrap. 
• The weight of an envelope compared to the equivalent polywrap can be a few grams heavier. This can be especially important if trying to keep the overall weight of the mailer below a postage price threshold. 
• As polywrapping uses a roll of film that is wrapped around the mail-piece, it is a lot easier and therefore cheaper to wrap non standard sizes of products. Compare this to using envelopes which would require expensive bespoke envelopes to be manufactured or the use of envelopes which are too large which can look clumsy as well as damage the envelope during delivery. 

Environmental Considerations

• Use of recycled envelopes works out considerably more expensive than envelopes made out of non-recycled paper. 
• Recycled polythene is not commercially available/feasible. The environmental compromise is polythene that is biodegradable which significantly reduces the time to degrade if placed on landfill. There is also a difference in price between standard polythene and biodegradable polythene, however this is not as significant as the difference between the envelope options. 
• There can be issues with recycling envelopes as some local authorities require windows to be removed. 
• Although polywrap is recyclable, facilities are not easily accessible, and most councils advise polywap to be mailed to a commercial polythene recycler such as http://www.polyprint.co.uk/pages/recycling.php. 

High Impact

• With polywrap you have the benefit of having a high impact product that is immediately on display without the recipient having to open the item. 
• Following on from the above, it is conceivable that more people at the recipient’s address will be able to view the mail-piece. This is especially true in a business as the mail can be passed from mailroom to reception to the recipient. 
• However achieving a high impact may not always be the desirable. Take the sending of sensitive material such as bank statements or payslips, but this goes beyond the obvious, and can also include literature which some recipients may want to keep private e.g. pregnancy or political brochures. 

Protection of Mail Piece

• There is greater scope for visible damage to envelopes in terms of getting crushed or folded as the mailer makes it way through the post. 
• For heavier items, envelopes are typically less durable than polywrapping and more likely suffer damage as the mail is handled. 
• Polywrap is waterproof compared to paper envelopes, which can prevent damage during delivery. 

Other Considerations

• Polywrapping may not be suitable/cost-effective for small mailing quantities. 
• Polywrapping can give a more professional appearance as this would need to have been outsourced to a mailing house. 
• Both polythene and paper are volatile commodities, so where one option may be the lowest price on one occasion may not be the same in future. 

For the small to medium business, mining local prospects is key to sustaining growth, with direct mail continuing to be the primary method of keeping channels between businesses and local customers open.

Many of you might be thinking, 'But it's too expensive!' Think again. There are a number of cost effective solutions such as AMS's Direct Mail Services that are designed to lower postage and packaging costs; often saving businesses up to 47% on standard tariffs; thus allowing more time to be spent on ensuring higher response rates from their marketing campaigns.

The 40/40/20 Rule

Rules are fantastic because they dictate the way things actually are, thus removing a substantial amount of the guess work. This rule applies to direct marketing specifically, and states that 40% of a campaign's success depends on list selection; 40% on the offer; and 20% on creative execution.

Targeting your audience

Building and developing a mailing list is crucial to an effective campaign, but list buying can be fraught with pitfalls.

Don't be tempted into buying large amounts of untested data. Ask for a small sample to validate the list first, and do some research into the company selling it. Buying from Direct Marketing Association (DMA) members will guarantee that the list adheres to UK and EU marketing laws; and safeguards against the negative implications of using poor quality and illegal data.

The Call-to-Action

Developing your brand and increasing awareness is all well and good, but sending out a mailer without a call to action will be a waste of time. Tell your audience what you want them to do (come into the store with the mailer to receive a 15% discount; book a 30 minute free consultation); will compel them into action and increase the effectiveness of the campaign.

Use your content space – and a great copywriter - to tell your audience what they want to know: Where are the benefits? What are they key selling points that make your company stand out? Do you have any testimonials regarding what other businesses/customers have to say about your business?

Let your mailing house look after your print

By working with a mailing house that also offers print services, you'll be killing many birds with the same stone: Not only will they provide the design, management, and expert finishing to give your campaign the creative execution it needs, but they will also save time and money.

Follow-Up

Plan and implement a follow up message that ties in to your initial call-to-action. This will serve to build brand awareness, and ensure that your business is at the forefront of the target's mind when it's time for them to buy. Think about the menus you get from your local Chinese takeaway...it's usually the same one, but when you're in the mood for a takeaway, they'll immediately spring to mind!

Taking the time to effectively plan your strategy at the beginning of a campaign is well worth the money it saves in the long run. By working closely with industry professionals – from list brokers and copywriters; to designers, printers, and mailing houses – you will see a significant return on your investment.

What are your tips for direct marketing success? Share them by posting your comments below.

The use of direct mail campaigns dwindled substantially as people moved towards digital methods of contact and marketing. But times are changing and there is a renewed opportunity for organisations to take advantage of this marketing medium; many that have are reporting high levels of success.

6 reasons why direct mail is making a comeback:

1. There is less noise to compete with – As mentioned above, many organisations have made the mistake of jumping ship on the use of direct mail as a viable marketing tool. By running a direct mail campaign now you are doing something unusual.
   
   People are more desensitised to emails and online adverts than they are to direct mail. When a direct mail piece hits someone’s doormat or desk the recipient is much more likely to read it than they are a promotional email or online banner.
   
   
2. You can be more creative with direct mail campaign designs – A4, A5, full colour, smouldering black and white, glossy finish, matt finish, single sided, double sided, tri-fold... The choices are endless; you have the ultimate opportunity to be creative with your brand and how you represent your products and services.
   
   
3. Postal addresses are easier to find than email addresses – With data protection laws in place blocking marketers and business owners from using personal email addresses, it is now easier to reach the correct people by post. If you buy a mailing list you are much more likely to get the name and postal address of every single contact on the list. Likewise, if you contact a company to find out who the key point of contact is for your product or service, you are likely to get their name but not their email address. Many organisations don’t give them out.
   
   
4. Your first impression is much more than a subject line - If the outer packaging of your direct mail campaign is right, people have opened and read it before they know what they are doing. Promotional emails are often deleted before they are even opened.
   
   
5. The cost of digital marketing is increasing – Many people moved over to digital marketing methods such as email and social media because they were seen as more cost effective. This is now changing. Email platforms such as Constant Contact and Dotmailer and social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook have cottoned on that there is money to be made. They are making it increasingly difficult to market effectively for little or no cost.
   
   
6. The ‘noise’ online is unbearably loud – Flashing images, spam email, personal emails, pop up ads, these are all the things you are competing with when you take your marketing online. Physical post has diminished, people even get their bills by email now so you are competing with a lot less; plus everyone likes to have post to open.
   
   

There really is an argument for including direct mail in your business’ marketing plan. Get ahead of the curve and get your business in front of your customers today.

Within the EU there is a requirement to open up formerly closed markets, especially those that have been the subject of Government monopolies. One of the organisations most resistant to change, at least in Britain, has been the national operator responsible for the delivery of mail.

Ironically however, Britain has opened its mail market faster and further than most other member states, which has allowed (from 2000) the entry of independent (mostly foreign) postal delivery operations. They focused initially on the business-to-business (B2B) direct mail market, but as market liberalisation proceeded to full competition in 2006 they began to win share from Royal Mail in business-to-consumer (B2C) delivery.

While Royal Mail was restricted by its Royal Charter and its reliance upon public funding, privatised operators like PostNL in the Netherlands and Deutsche Post were making international acquisitions in related fields such as courier, parcels, freight and financial hand delivery. So well-known names like TNT (Dutch-owned) and DHL (German) are now entrenched in the UK and worldwide market. As Business Secretary Vince Cable put it when explaining Royal Mail’s flotation in 2013 –

"The government's decision on the sale is practical, it is logical, it is a commercial decision designed to put Royal Mail's future on a long-term sustainable business. It is consistent with developments elsewhere in Europe where privatised operators in Austria, Germany and Belgium produce profit margins far higher than the Royal Mail but have continued to provide high-quality and expanding services."

The new (70% privately-owned) Royal Mail must now play catch-up internationally, whilst seeking to be more competitive in an increasingly competitive home market. It is analogous to BT (which was demerged from it in 1981): both organisations are required to maintain a universal delivery service to all households, while being profitable. BT has reinvented itself, supplying and upgrading its network on a wholesale basis to its competitors, while reinvesting the profits of its legacy business in new fields. The challenge for Royal Mail is to do likewise.

What can direct mailing companies expect?

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) represents the direct mail industry, supplying £1 billion of Royal Mail's turnover, DMA Executive Director Chris Combemale warned the CWU postal workers’ union, when strike action was threatened (and averted) pre-Christmas 2013:

"Commercial users account for the biggest percentage of Royal Mail's turnover. Any disruption to service would quickly lead businesses to take their custom elsewhere, which is an outcome that would not benefit the postal workers that CWU represents."

It is inevitable that the future Royal Mail will be a smaller business, leaner and more competitive. Online shopping is its biggest growth area and it must work to secure the lion’s share of this market, as private mail declines. Royal Mail’s new ‘click and collect’ service uses Post Offices as pick-up points for deliveries, and it also recently gained approval to leave packages with neighbours, which other firms already did.

Meanwhile, direct marketers are watching with interest, and in many cases profiting, as new battlegrounds emerge.

The key issue on B2C direct mail is ‘downstream access’. Whereas competitors since 2006 have had the freedom to collect and sort mail from customers, they have largely then handed the items to Royal Mail for the downstream ‘final mile’ delivery that only it has the national network to accomplish.

New Downstream Access providers (DSA)

The first real DSA competitor has now emerged, offering end-to-end delivery for direct mail users: it is TNT, and it is gradually rolling out through London postcodes, delivering by bicycle three times a week and offering track and trace on each item. TNT already delivers 300 million items a month, and has ambitious plans to expand the staffing on this service from 1,000 to an eventual 20,000. To achieve this goal it is looking to bring in a co-investor.

Ofcom is the regulator of postal services, and Royal Mail is lobbying the body hard on the grounds that competitors like this are ‘cherry picking’ profitable city routes and are not offering an everyday delivery. It remains to be seen how this plays out. The Mayor of London is strongly supporting the new service.

How you can benefit

Royal Mail still has a strong advantage by virtue of its exemption from VAT, so that competitors must overcome a 20% competitive disadvantage. But within major cities companies like TNT (and smaller competitors like DX) can still achieve the economy of scale to provide attractive pricing, unless Ofcom should choose to shackle them by insisting that they deliver to wider (unprofitable) areas or deliver 6 days a week.

Using a professional mailing operation like Advanced Mailing Solutions (AMS) of Glasgow is the key to unlocking big savings on mailing costs, whichever way works out to be the best for your situation.

Assuming that your database is capable of being sorted (and if it is not then AMS can cleanse it for you) there is the opportunity to qualify for one of the categories of Mailsort rates, which achieve up to 47% discounts when compared against Royal Mail's standard tariff.

AMS will also work with you to establish whether it is economic to pre-sort your London mail, for example, to TNT or another DSA. The arrival of new competition can only be good for the industry and we can expect the new Royal Mail to defend its position with attractive rates and services.

All of the competitors are wooing direct mailing firms with extra incentives for Advertising Mail and Sustainable (environmentally-friendly) Mail.

Of course the mail savings that are on offer can soon be offset unless you have access to the ancillary mailing house services like polywrapping, envelope enclosing and postcard printing at cost-effective rates. Fortunately all of these services are on offer under one roof at AMS: together with free consultancy on how best to negotiate the maze of DSA and Royal Mail tariffs that are now on offer.

Paper Sizes

International standards ISO 216 and ISO 269 specify 3 different paper sizes

A Series

This is the most common and well known series of paper sizes, the largest of which is the A0 which has an area of one square metre. The series is defined in the following diagram were A1 is half the size of A0, A2 is half the size of A1 and so on.

(note all sizes are in mm)

B Series

C Series

applicability

Prior to the adoption of ISO 216, many different paper formats were used internationally. These formats did not fit into a coherent system and were defined in terms of non-metric units. The ISO 216 formats are organized around the ratio 1:√2; two sheets next to each other together have the same ratio, sideways. This simplifies copying two A4 sheets in reduced size on one, and copying an A4 sheet in magnified size on an A3 sheet or copying half an A4 sheet in magnified size on an A4 sheet. The principal countries not generally using the ISO paper sizes are the United States of America and Canada, which use the Letter, Legal, and Executive system. (Canada uses a P-series of sizes, which are the American paper sizes rounded to metric dimensions.)

 paper folds

single, half, V-fold	letter, C-fold	accordion, Z-fold	double parallel fold
cross fold	half accordion fold	gate fold

Advanced Mailing Solutions today signs a new lease on additional premises within the Company's existing business park. This now takes the East Kilbride-based firm's storage and production facility to more than 12,000 sq ft and greatly enhances the Company’s warehousing capability.

The company's mailing address and contacts details remain unchanged by this latest development.

Advanced Mailing Solutions is pleased to announce the installation of what is understood to be the largest and one of the fastest polywrapping lines in Scotland.

With 13 insert stations capable of inserting or onserting stock from A6 of A3 in size, the Buhrs BB1000 (upgraded to BB3000 specification) is certainly capable of fulfilling even the most complex of polywrapping requirements, including the inserting of CDs or other hard-backed items.   And with impressive operating speeds of up to 13,000 wraps per hour, any project size can be fulfilled within the tightest of timescales.

However, what sets the BB3000 out from the competition is the BuhrsWrap feature. This innovative development greatly improves the presentation of journals, magazines and other quality media products by wrapping the product without the traditional flaps. BuhrsWrap protects the mailpiece from possible damage and the enclosed materials from sliding. The absence of flaps also means that less poly is used providing a more environmentally option. However should a traditional flap be required then a simple switch enables a conventional polywrapped mailpiece to be produced.

Furthermore the BB3000 comes with an Easy Opening option that can provide a longitudinal perforation, enabling simple opening of the pack.

Buhrs BB1000 – Technical Specifications

• Mechanical performance - max 13,000 envelopes per hour
• Number of inserts - up to 13
• Poly and paper thickness - poly 15 - 80 micron
• Product dimensions: - min. single sheet (60-80 grams/m2)- max. 35 mm
• Product thickness - max. 25 mm / 1.0"

About Buhrs

Buhrs is a leading worldwide provider of mailing and fulfilment solutions. The company develops, manufactures, sells and services systems for poly and paper wrapping, envelope inserting and fulfilment.

Buhrs systems prepare media products, such as magazines, newspapers, documents, direct mail products, books, videos, compact discs and cards, for distribution. Buhrs systems perform the following functions: collating of products (in- and onserting), addressing (inkjet or label), wrapping of products (in poly, paper, envelopes or boxes), back-end sorting and stacking of products.

Buhrs provides software solutions for database connections, read and print, closed loop, integrated systems control, production management and mailroom management. Buhrs systems can be equipped with reading and verification devices, such as bar code scanners, OMR readers and cameras.

Buhrs is partner to postal organisations, publishers, printers, binders, mailing houses, letter shops, banks, service bureaus, insurance companies, fulfilment companies and many other companies ranging from medium-sized to leading businesses.

With over 4,500 systems installed worldwide and four new installations per week, Buhrs is well-established and proud of its reputation for quality and reliability.

Headquartered in Zaandam, Buhrs has a network of subsidiaries in the Netherlands, Germany, France, the United States of America, Japan and China as well as industry-qualified distributors to provide global coverage.

http://www.buhrs.com/

Buhrs BB300 – Technical Specifications

• Mechanical performance - 10,000 envelopes per hour
• Number of inserts - up to 6
• Envelope formats - min. 114 x 162 mm - max. 250 x 353 mm
• Product formats - min 105 x 148 mm - max. 229 x 324 mm
• Product thickness - 3 mm for rotary feeder - 10 mm for shuttle feeder - 13 mm for vacuum/friction feeder

Advanced Mailing Solutions are pleased to advise of our recent deployment of an MCS Array 6" Inkjet System. Built using the latest HP print technology, this new addition vastly increases our operational potential both in terms of speed (up to 36,000 items per hour) and the range of stock that we can now print on.

With an ever increasing demand on producing non standard sizes of mail pieces and to help our clients take advantage of reduced postage prices due to Pricing in Proportion, Advanced Mailing Solutions has recently invested in a Digital Guillotine with the capability to guillotine up to A3.

>Advanced Mailing Solutions today announces the acquisition of a new industrial unit within the company's existing business park, more than doubling the East Kilbride-based firm's storage and production facility to more than 7,500 sq ft.

The company's mailing address and contacts details remain unchanged by this exciting development.

Advanced Mailing Solutions are pleased to announce the arrival of our first Norpak CF35 polywrapper. The CF35 comes with extended infeed conveyor and surefeed inserters all fitted with mis and double detections to ensure the polywrapped mail pieces are 100% accurate.

This new addition ensures we can continue to offer our clients the most up to date services at a throughput that can accommodate even the largest of Polywrapping requirements.

Following the successful delivery of an earlier data cleansing project, Advanced Mailing Solutions has successfully secured the contract for the mailing fulfillment of the first edition of "Nature of Scotland".

The overall specification required Advanced Mailing Solutions to provide overprinted 4 colour C4 envelopes inkjetted with contact details and SNH Letterheads. However, the detailed specification contained 4 different mailing segments each requiring different fulfilment and selective insertion.

Furthermore, data had to be filtered and grouped to enable bulk shipments of mail where multiple copies were required for different addresses.

Earlier this year Advanced Mailing Solutions has been awarded the contract to merge, standardise and de-duplicate Scottish Natural Heritage's contact data in part to ensure the organisation's data is available for a wider audience as part of the Scottish Government's SEARS/SRDP programmes.

The project involved the merging of multiple contact databases each with its own distinct data format and data requirements. This data then had to be standardised to model the organisation's central corporate data structure. Further cleansing was then undertaken to de-duplicate the data to both an organisation and contact level, whilst preserving all data for organisations and contacts that are attached to identified duplicates. Finally, to improve the quality of the remaining data, the data had to be PAF cleansed to ensure each of the addresses were accurate to Royal Mail Standards.

The project was delivered on-schedule and within budget.

As one of the largest universities in Scotland, Glasgow Caledonian University identified the need to appoint an experienced and proactive partner for the mailing fulfilment of its twice yearly "Caledonian +" Alumni Magazine.

A 3 year contract has been awarded to fulfil the mailing services covering the laser personalisation, Mailsorting and Polywrapping of the Magazine to approx 50,000 UK and Overseas Alumni members twice a year.

The award criteria was based not only on price, but on having a proven track record in producing a quality service of this type for the Higher Education market.

Advanced Mailing Solutions today were confirmed as being one of only a very few mailing houses in Scotland to have been accepted for membership into the Direct Marketing Association. This award follows a successful site inspection by the DMA Mailing House Council were the company's processes and procedures were verified as being compliant with the DMA Code of Practice.

Continual Development

However, membership does not just stop with a certificate on the wall. Being a member requires continual development and training to ensure that we as a company stay ahead of our competitors by continuing to adopt industry best practices and ensuring that our customer's campaigns continue to be carried out in line with recent (and future) legislative changes.

Market Intelligence

In addition, being a member provides us access to a wealth of market intelligence on the current and future direction of the direct marketing industry. This means that we have the information to help our customers achieve the most out of their direct marketing campaigns.