1. Sit up straight. Having good posture not only makes you appear more confident, but it also has physical benefits, too. It keeps your spine properly aligned, reducing back pain and improves your breathing because your muscles sit where they should—as a bonus, eased breathing keeps you alert and attentive.

2. Sit on an exercise ball. Using an exercise ball helps reinforce good posture while also working your core muscles that go unused in a traditional chair. If you maximize the use of your ball by stretching under your desk and doing mini-workouts, you can burn up to 350 calories per day. But even if you just use it instead of your standard desk chair, you’ll be better off.

3. Avoid doughnuts in the break room. Offering healthier snack alternatives in your office makes clear that you value health as part of your office culture. Cutting back on things like doughnuts—even though they’re delicious—trims caloric intake significantly. Replace doughnuts and other sugary breakfast foods with granola bars and fruit for an equally sweet but markedly more nutritious breakfast.

4. Get up and talk to someone instead of e-mailing. Even if your office is a small one, getting out of your chair and making your way to a colleague’s desk is an easy way to get on your feet and add a little bit of movement to your day. When you sit for too long, your muscle activity stalls and your metabolism slows almost to a halt. Getting up and moving around boosts your calorie-burning rate to three times the sluggish rate when you’re simply sitting at your desk.

5. Don’t forget why the water cooler’s really there. Water is vital to life and health, and chances are, it’s available to you in virtually unlimited proportions right in your office. The water cooler aptly serves as a meeting spot and gossip mill, but remember why it’s really there. Choosing water instead of soda can cut your caloric intake pretty significantly. Plus, drinking those eight glasses of water a day helps keep your body hydrated and healthy.

6. Actually take a lunch break. Sure, you’re busy. It’s sometimes easier to work through lunch (with some help from the vending machine), or forget to eat one altogether. But research suggests going without lunch can leave you frustrated, drained and far less productive.

(via OPEN Forum)

1. Send a teaser email before a postal mailing: If you’re planning a big direct mail campaign, you can create excitement for it by emailing your list ahead of time and telling them to look for something special in the mail. This can be a good technique if you’re sending a new catalogue or unique gift.

2. Follow up your postal mailings with email: If you send an enticing direct mail piece, your customers should take notice. But nothing guarantees you that they will take action. That’s why it is worth following up your postal mailing with several emails, in which you remind them about that direct mail piece, provide them with more information or offer them another discount. Doing this can reinforce your brand and get more customers to take action.

3. Use QR codes: Another way to boost your response is to include a QR code in your emails and postal mailers. This will allow customers to put your message directly on their mobile devices. If you offer them a discount with the QR code, they can use it the next time they visit your store or website.

(via Pitney Bowes)

Good luck with that, there aren’t any.

If you hesitate when leaping from rope to another, you’re not going to last very long.

And this is at the heart of what makes innovation work in organizations, why industries die, and how painful it is to try to maintain the status quo while also participating in a revolution.

Gather up as much speed as you can, find a path and let go. You can’t get to the next rope if you’re still holding on to this one.

(via Seth’s Blog)

The U.S. mailing industry today expressed grave concern with the news that the U.S. Postal Service lost $3.3 billion in the 1st quarter of Fiscal Year 2012. The Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, a coalition of businesses and industries tied to the mailing industry, is pushing Congress to take urgent action on reforming the Postal Service.

“We have a Postal Service that essentially is living from paycheck to paycheck, which is a very risky proposition for the American economy and the 8 million private sector workers whose jobs rely on the mail,” said Art Sackler, Coordinator of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service. “A great financial quarter isn’t going to save the Postal Service, but a terrible financial quarter could sink it. That’s why Congress needs to pass postal reform legislation now.”

The coalition is urging the U.S. Senate to pass a bipartisan postal reform bill authored by Senators Joe Lieberman, Tom Carper, Susan Collins and Scott Brown. That bill would return overpayments that USPS has made into the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) in order to help the Postal Service encourage early retirements, and help lay the groundwork for streamlining the postal system to more accurately reflect the decreased volume of mail. The coalition has also urged the U.S. House to take up legislation authored by Representatives Darrell Issa and Dennis Ross that would make sweeping reforms of the U.S. Postal Service.

“Each day Congress fails to enact postal reform, this problem grows more difficult and perhaps more expensive to resolve,” said Sackler.

Businesses now can mail First-Class Mail automation and presort letters weighing up to two ounces at the one-ounce postage rate using the new “2nd Ounce Free” pricing.

The new 2nd Ounce Free option is not a limited time promotion, but a new price for First-Class Mail automation and presort letters. The new pricing does not apply to single-piece letters.

Mailers can use 2nd Ounce Free to inform, educate and strengthen customer loyalty by providing additional information, such as advertising material, announcements, coupons, disclosures and notifications. The extra free ounce also can be used to
conduct consumer research with surveys and reply cards.

(via USPS)

1. Focus on the Big Donors

If you have a donor database of 10,000 and mail to every one of them every time, you may be able to recoup your costs. However, if you focus more consistently on the 2000 donors that traditionally give the most, you’ll generate a better return for the dollars spent.

By focusing direct mail efforts on your biggest donors, you can cut the number of pieces mailed without dramatically cutting the amount of money raised. You can still mail to the balance of your donors, but also consider combining mail with less expensive channels like email and social media,

2. Keep Lists Up to Date

People move, they change jobs, they prefer other outreach methods, or they just want out altogether. This might lead to a few dead letters in one mailing, but over time it adds up and so does the cost.

So make sure your packages aren’t lost in the shuffle. Keep your lists clean. Use the National Change of Address (NCOA) database to update old addresses or scrub undeliverable addresses from your list. Run regular updates to look for duplicates or incomplete addresses. If someone requests information through another channel like email, mark the name for use in your next communication. And when someone asks to opt out, respect their wishes and stop sending mail. They won’t like the intrusion, and you definitely won’t get a donation.

3. Streamline Your Mail Package

If you’re mailing the nicest, information-packed package possible, you could be spending much more on your direct mail than necessary. Expensive stock and lots of materials are impressive, but they may not bring in enough donations to justify the costs.

You can slim down your package and still provide the same information. A basic direct mail package might include a letter with graphics depicting your cause, a reply form, and a reply envelope. Test the effectiveness of providing options for responding, both through the mail and online. Include your website address as a means to donate and offer additional materials for download as well.

Reducing the size and weight of your package by eliminating additional pieces lowers your printing and postage costs. Saving just a few pennies per package will add up quickly if your mailing thousands of pieces.

(via EUS Marketing Blog)

This simple word of advice makes good copywriters legendary.

With it, you’re going to increase sales. Without it, you’re finished.

It’s deceptively plain, and easily ignored.

We already know if nobody makes it past your headline, nobody reads your content or sales page. This makes the headline the most important element of your persuasive copy.

What’s the 2nd most important element?

You’ve already read it …
The first sentence

(via copyblogger)

1. Attach a sticky note Mark Bodzin, an online advertising executive, headed a campaign at a former job consisting of a piece that looked like a torn-out page from a newspaper. Affixed to the upper right section of the newsprint was a sticky note handwritten with the target’s first name and a brief message. The response rate skyrocketed from 1-2% to 4.5% with personalization. He says, “It was such a powerful piece that I received letters from people asking if they knew me.”

2. Provide a useful, personalized service If you’ve ever moved into a new town and had to figure out the basics all over again, such as finding Post Office™ locations, schools, hair salons and doctors, you know much work it can entail. Seattle-area healthcare provider The Everett Clinic, in conjunction with its advertising agency Frank Unlimited, recently launched a direct mail piece for families new to the area. The mailer is labeled with the family’s name and a highlighted driving route and distance from that home to the nearest clinic. The agency used a prominent search engine’s maps technology to help create the pieces, which are mailing to 1,500 recipients monthly, says agency principal Susana Cascais.

3. Make it funny Everybody loves cartoons. That’s the philosophy behind CartoonLink, a Seattle firm that has produced cartoon-based direct mail programs for 30 years. The company creates cards and mailers imprinted with cartoons, and personalizes them by inserting the customer or prospect’s name into the cartoon caption. The company developed a subscriber acquisition campaign for a well-known advertising magazine, which delivered the highest gross response in four years and the highest payment-with-order in the publication’s history, according to CartoonLink president Stu Heinecke. The offer included an 8″ x 10″ print of the cartoon for people wanting to frame it. “While most promotional mail gets screened away, recipients tend to treat ours as keepsakes,” he says. A campaign featuring cartoon greeting cards for an insurance company generated a 100% response rate, based on 1,200 prospects who agreed to meetings with sales reps in follow-up calls, Heinecke adds.

4. Use technology to streamline efforts Real estate companies depend heavily on referrals and 1-to-1 marketing, so everything has to be personalized. “We wanted to create a product that had all the benefits of self-created direct mail pieces without the time and cost,” says Chad Rueffert, president of From Your Friends, a Colorado Springs–based marketing firm focused on the real estate industry. The firm partners with local restaurants and attractions to create a monthly postcard featuring a discount offer at the venue. The real estate salesperson then uses an online design tool, provided by From Your Friends, to personalize the postcard by adding their photo, contact info, personal notes, a scanned signature, new listings, or detail on the local real estate market. Clients have shared that the program has increased sales, and that customers often call agents to thank them for the postcards and to offer new names for the mailing list, Rueffert says. Many of his real estate clients close three or four deals every year because of the program, he says. Polly Traylor writes about business, technology and marketing from Golden, Colorado.

(via Deliver)

First Class rates increased by 2.1% overall with the 44-cent stamp increasing to 45 cents. For First Class Mail, along with the rate increases, there was a particularly notable classification change; namely, for presorted letters, the first weight increment changes from one to two ounces.

Standard Mail also increased by 2.1% overall with Letters increasing by approximately 1.9% and Flats by 2.2%. There were no classifications changes for Standard Mail.

1. Improve list quality

When it comes to your subscriber list, longer isn’t always better. Focusing on those prospects who are most interested in what you have to offer can get you the best results, whether through gaining more sales or receiving helpful feedback on your products or services. Build your targeted prospect list by including links to your e-mail sign-up page on your website, in your social media profiles, by your cash register and on your customer receipts.

Once new subscribers opt in to your list, send an e-mail asking them to confirm their subscription and to specify their preferences, such as how often they wish to be contacted and the type of content they are most interested in. Your e-mail service provider may be able to help with this. You may be able to improve your response rate by segmenting your list and sending more targeted messages to subscribers.

2. Create compelling content

Providing engaging, useful content is still an essential part of nurturing customer relationships. E-mail newsletters with helpful articles and tips can help you connect with customers and build community. Social media is another powerful tool to help businesses gauge what is on their customers’ minds and deliver relevant information. For example, a lawn-care service that sees its Facebook fans discussing what fertilizer works best might include suggestions in its next e-mail newsletter. Or a restaurant might feature recipes that social media followers have posted.

When writing copy for your e-mail offers, think short and to the point. Be sure what you want your readers to do after reading your message—known as the call to action—is clear. Make your subject lines enticing and don’t exaggerate the benefits of what you are offering. Include any deadlines to act, such as: “15 percent off rugs — two days left to save.”

3. Deliver your e-mails effectively

Since many subscribers will be reading your e-mails on their smartphones, make your content more accessible to them. Reduce large images and shorten articles so they are easier to scroll through. Include space between Web links to make them easier to click and have your designer use “ALT” tags, or image descriptions, in case images are turned off.

Place your main offer or call to action high up in your e-mails so potential customers don’t have to hunt for it. For subscribers who look at messages in a preview pane, a compelling offer at the top may entice them to click on your e-mail. Include a “forward to a friend” link at the bottom of your e-mails to help extend their reach.

4. Adjust your efforts

E-mail marketing is an ongoing process, so be ready to adjust your approach if you don’t see the results you want. Change the frequency of your e-mails—for example, from twice a month to once a week, or from daily to weekly—to see if response improves. If you don’t segment your subscriber list, see if your e-mail service provider can help you send better-targeted messages, perhaps based on subscribers’ interests or purchase history.

Track delivery rates and open rates, and check in with subscribers who have not opened any of your e-mails after three months. Extend a special offer to those subscribers and ask what you can do to make your messages more relevant.

(via OPEN Forum)